A Car Named Desire
by EnoughToTemptMe
Summary: Clarke's car breaks down and Bellamy is the one to fix it. They do not hit it off. [a collaborative fic tennis project]


This is a fic tennis story, meaning it is a collaboration co-authored by myself (enoughtotemptme) and TheInvisibleQuestion (smallerontheoutside on tumblr and AO3). It was written in "volleys" of 300 words exactly that we would take turns writing. We had no knowledge or control of what the other would write in her part, and this story is the result. The first volley was written by smallerontheoutside, the second by enoughtotemptme, and so on.

We hope you enjoy, and we'd love to hear your thoughts!

* * *

It would figure that Clarke's car would work just fine right up until she started working at her new job. The fact that it broke down in the middle of the road five blocks away from work after the longest day ever (training days always took longer than regular work days, even when the training was just on how to navigate the company network) was just icing on an already shitty cake.

Clarke thanks the tow truck driver and walks into the office of Reyes Automotive. It smells like new tires and old grease. Raven's at the dusty old computer trying to input customer data. "Hey, Clarke. I thought we weren't going to dinner until tomorrow."

Clarke jingles her keys. "Well, my car had other plans. I don't know what's wrong, but it's super broken. I had to call a tow truck." She drops her keys on the counter.

"I see that." Raven makes a face. "I'll have the new guy look at it tomorrow. I'm up to my ears in business shit." She smacks the computer again and growls.

"Maybe you should have Wick come down and take a look at that," Clarke says.

Raven rolls her eyes. "He's an arrogant ass, and I don't need his help. The computer doesn't need fixing, just needs a firm hand." She smacks the monitor, and Clarke hears the crackle of static.

"Okay, well, I'm just gonna go get my stuff out of my car, then. Probably call a taxi. Text and let me know what the diagnosis is."

Her car is already in the garage when she gets out of the office, and there's a tall, skinny guy digging around under the hood. She yanks the driver door open and reaches across to grab her work stuff from the passenger seat.

As she tries to unhook the strap of her messenger bag from where it's caught on the passenger seat's adjustment lever, she leans a little too hard against the steering wheel. The horn sounds with a painfully loud blare and Clarke jumps, losing her balance and toppling into the car.

There's a loud thud outside the car at the same time she lands hard on her center console. The water bottle in her cupholder is digging into her ribcage, and she groans at the immediate ache. Distantly, she hears a male voice cursing in a manner both vicious and impressive. Clarke pushes herself up and maneuvers backward out of the car, careful not to press the horn again or hit her head.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she hears as she straightens up with a wince.

Turning around, she sees the guy glaring at her. He's got grease stains all over the ragged t-shirt and worn jeans he's wearing, and he's rubbing the back of his head with one hand. Normally, Clarke would apologize about something like this—after all, the horn thing was her fault, and it looks like his head hurts—but the scowl on his face and the hostility in his voice immediately rub her the wrong way.

"I think it's pretty obvious that I'm getting my things out of my car," she says instead. This time when she reaches in, her messenger bag comes free immediately.

"You can't just fuck around in your car when somebody's working on it." He's still rubbing his head, and his dark curly hair is getting messier by the second.

Clarke narrows her eyes at him and slams the door shut.

"Last time I checked, I don't take orders from you," she replies with a little sneer of her own.

Clarke slings the messenger bag over her shoulder, turns on her heel, and strides away. It's been sprinkling intermittently all day, but it starts to rain in earnest as the sun goes down and the taxi she called doesn't show up. She glares angrily at the sky and retreats into the shop office, where Raven is still fighting with the computer.

The other mechanic pokes his head into the office half an hour later. "Reyes, I'm out."

Raven glances at Clarke. "You figure out what's wrong with her car?"

He shrugs and gives Raven a report which is mostly car jargon and maybe three percent actual English. Raven makes a face, though, which Clarke takes as a bad sign. "I'll get the parts sent over tomorrow, but you're in charge of fixing that—" Clarke doesn't recognize the word Raven uses to describe the car, but it sounds distinctly derogatory.

"Sure." He leaves then, and Clarke calls the taxi dispatch again. As it turns out, there was no taxi on its way to her. Clarke hangs up before the dispatcher can get her location again.

"Raven, can you give me a ride home?" Clarke asks.

"How long do you want to wait?"

"Never mind. I'll call my mom."

She goes out into the garage so her call doesn't disturb Raven's "intense concentration," but her mom doesn't pick up, so Clarke scrolls through her contacts and starts calling anyone who might be willing to come get her. Her contact list is shorter than she imagined, though, and everyone she calls is busy or out of town.

Clarke drops her messenger bag under a chair in the office and goes to the corner store. If she's going to have to wait for Raven, she's not going to do it on an empty stomach.

She hasn't had an umbrella since Jasper borrowed hers "for science" three months ago, so she has to hurry through the rain, trying not to get even wetter than she already is.

She doesn't succeed. When Clarke pushes through the door of the corner store, her boots squelch on the linoleum floor and her hair sticks wetly to her head and neck. The shop is little but Clarke's been here a few times when she's picked up lunch to bring to Raven, so she knows how to weave through the chaotic set-up of shelves and displays to get to the good stuff.

Clarke turns into one of the aisles and stops dead. Halfway down, a figure with rain-damp hair and familiar stained clothes is facing away from her toward the soup display. As she watches, he plucks a can off the shelf, reads the label, grimaces and puts it back with a decisive clunk.

"Are you kidding me?" she grumbles under her breath. She darts back the way she came as he sighs and pulls his phone out of his pocket.

She stealthily makes her way to the deli aisle, hoping there's a pre-made sandwich or something left even though it's late in the evening. Luck is on her side—she's avoided another encounter with Asshole What's-his-name, and she locates a mostly-edible looking chicken salad sandwich. She scans a rack for her favorite kind of chips, and debates whether or not to get a to-go serving of the minestrone that's sitting in a covered soup warmer.

"Hey, O. What kind of soup did you want?"

Clarke stiffens as his voice echoes through the quiet store.

"This canned shit all sounds terrible." He sounds skeptical, and Clarke is incredibly aware of the way she's dripping water on the floor in loud plops.

He barely even looks at her on his way to the hot case. "There's minestrone." He lifts the lid on the soup warmer. "Well, it looks better than any of the canned shit." He listens intently to "O" for a minute. "I love you, O, but I'm not making potato leek tonight. Minestrone or chicken soup out of a can." After another pause, he says, "Okay. I'll be home in a bit," and hangs up.

Clarke just stands there, dripping wet, while he fills a to-go cup and pops a lid on it. He doesn't even acknowledge her, the ass, as he walks by her toward the chips and crackers. She glares at the back of his head and then grabs her own to-go cup. The minestrone is nice and hot after the drenching rain, at least until she spills a healthy amount on her hand and drops the cup she's holding, which splashes on her shirt. "Fuck!"

She wipes her hand on her pants and sucks on the angry red skin, swearing around her hand. She hears a snort and turns to see Mr. Asshole Mechanic looking at her with one eyebrow raised. Great, she thinks. Exactly what she needs right now. She's sopping wet and covered in minestrone, and now her best friend's newest employee, a guy she doesn't even know, is laughing at her.

"Yeah, go ahead, laugh at my misfortune," she sneers, and then adds under her breath, "Ass."

He throws up the hand that isn't holding a cup of soup. "If you insist. I was going to offer to help clean that mess up because I'm actually a nice guy, but clearly you need my help with your soup about as much as I need your help fixing that joke of a car you've got."

"Okay, first of all, that car is a goddamned champion."

Yeah, it needs a little work every now and then—more now and less then, recently—but it was older than Clarke when her father handed it down to her on her sixteenth birthday. The fact that it's still running is a source of pride.

"Second of all, 'nice guy'?" Clarke echoes. "Well, you're a comedian, I'll give you that, though you're not a very funny one." She pointedly turns away from him and grabs a fistful of napkins from the dispenser next to the soup. She sops up the soup on the floor, then starts wiping at her front. There's no getting dry after the rain and the soup, but maybe she can save the clothes.

"You're just going to set the stain if you keep doing that," he says.

Clarke closes her eyes and sighs.

"Why are you still here?" she asks. "Why?"

"I can't leave," he replies. "It's like watching a train wreck, you're doing that so wrong. Have you ever even done laundry? Or are you one of those fancy little princesses with a bunch of maids and a butler?"

"Leave. Now. Take that stupid soup to O," she tells him, and then immediately regrets it when his eyebrows skyrocket.

"You were listening to my conversation?"

"It's hard not to when someone's as much of a loudmouth as you are," she replies defensively.

"I'm the loudmouth? Have you ever heard yourself talk, princess?"

"Your soup is getting colder," she says through gritted teeth.

"And your attitude is getting even shittier," he replies, irritation clear on his face.

"Is there a problem here, miss? Bellamy?" An older man wearing an apron with the shop's name is standing a nearby, looking between the two of them with a concerned expression.

Clarke looks at the soup-soaked napkins and her shirt. "Sorry," she tells him. "I spilled the soup."

The man shrugs. "Happens all the time. I'll clean it up later. How's your sister?" he asks Bellamy.

"Better. I should be getting home, though." He gestures with the soup, and then follows the shop owner to the register. Clarke glares at the back of his head for a bit, then carefully serves herself another container of soup.

* * *

She gets a ride to work with Maya, and a cab to the shop, hoping Raven's been able to do something about her car, but it's up on the lift when she arrives, Bellamy standing underneath it. Clarke ignores him on her way into the office.

Raven's still fighting with the computer, although now she's surrounded by papers and folders. "Hey, Clarke."

"Have you been in here all day?"

Raven shrugs. "Don't ever own a business, Clarke. The paperwork sucks ass."

Clarke laughs. "I'll keep that in mind. Well, let me know when the car's ready."

"Yeah. Right. Uh, you might want to talk to Bellamy about it."

Clarke snorts. "I really don't. What's wrong with it?"

"Everything," Raven tells her, and Clarke hopes it sounds more dramatic than it actually is. "I don't know. I heard Bellamy swearing earlier, so he either found the problem and hurt himself trying to fix it, or your car is an enigma."

Bellamy comes in then, holding a greasy rag to his hand. When he sees Clarke, he gives her an annoyed glare.

"What happened?" Clarke asks, her emergency training overriding her distaste for Bellamy.

"Your fucking car happened," he growls. "I need a ride, Reyes."

Raven looks at Clarke, who shakes her head vigorously. "Please?" Raven makes her best puppy dog face, and Clarke rolls her eyes.

"No," Bellamy says flatly. But Clarke sees the tense way he's holding himself, the grim set to his mouth, and damn it, she's her mother's daughter and she wasn't raised to ignore someone else's pain. Even if the someone is a total asshat.

"You owe me," she grumbles, holding out her hand. Raven slaps the keys to her own truck into Clarke's palm.

"I don't—" Bellamy tries to protest, but neither Clarke nor Raven pay attention to him.

"Hurry up," Raven says. "He's dripping on the floor."

It's true; red has bloomed through the disgusting scrap of fabric and a couple dark drops have landed on the ground.

"Jesus, Bellamy, hold your hand up," Clarke says. "And get your ass to the truck."

He sends her a withering glare but carefully raises his hand up until it's higher than his heart.

"This good, princess?" he says.

"It'd be even better if you'd shut up," she replies, and yanks open the door. "Let's go."

"Don't bleed on the upholstery!" she hears Raven call as the door closes.

Clarke unlocks the truck and opens the passenger door for Bellamy so he doesn't have to let go of his injured hand. She draws the line at buckling his seatbelt for him, though; he can either figure it out himself or he'll have to live dangerously for the twenty minute drive to the walk-in clinic.

She clambers up into the driver's seat and when she turns the key in the ignition, the truck is so quiet that Clarke wonders briefly if something's wrong with the battery. But the dashboard glows to life and the heater immediately starts up, and when she shifts gears the truck rolls smoothly out of the parking lot.

The only time her car is that quiet is when it's dead.

She's tense the whole way to the clinic, and it's not just because the truck is so damn quiet. Bellamy insists he knows the fastest way there, and Clarke has to remind him that she's driving and she'll thank him to just keep putting pressure on his hand.

"If I don't bleed out before we get there," he mutters, glaring at the red light they're stopped at.

"You're not going to bleed out, you big baby." Clarke reaches over, pops the glove box open, and hands him a fistful of napkins. He drops the blood-soaked rag into his lap to pick up the clean napkins, and she catches a glimpse of the gash—clean but deep. "If you get blood on Raven's truck, you're cleaning it up."

Bellamy snorts and lifts his hand a little higher. "I'm not the one who's taking the long way around."

Clarke rolls her eyes and pulls around a corner and into the parking lot of the walk-in clinic. "Short enough for you?"

"It still would have been faster to go my way."

"You just tell yourself that." Clarke gets out and opens the door for him. He hops down, and walks into the clinic without her, making his annoyance as obvious as possible. She licks her finger and rubs a spot of blood off the door, and then locks the truck and follows Bellamy into the clinic.

She knows pretty much everyone here, because this is where she did her R.O.P. stint in high school. She greets Harper and Jackson by name, and it's a quiet day at the clinic, so Bellamy will only have to wait a few minutes to be seen. Harper gives him a clean towel while he waits, though, and when he sits down, Clarke says, "Let me see."

He clutches his hand and shakes his head, and Clarke scoffs at him. She plops down in the seat next to him, but he holds his hand away from her.

"Let me see it!" she repeats, leaning over his body and trying to grab his wrist, but Bellamy holds it high above his head. Suddenly she realizes that she's got one hand braced against his bicep while she reaches with the other; his skin under her palm is warm and firm, and her fingertips are touching the soft, worn material of his ancient-looking t-shirt. Clarke snatches her hand away as if his stupidly toned arm burned her.

"Just leave it, princess," he says.

"Idiot," she mutters, crossing her arms and slouching back in the chair. "I have medical training, you know."

"You're a graphic designer," he says, tone skeptical.

Clarke turns her head to stare at him.

His skin doesn't show a blush as easily as hers does, but there's definitely some pink in his cheeks as he defiantly meets her gaze.

"What?" he says defensively. "Raven mentioned it. She never shuts up about you."

"Sure," Clarke replies slowly. "Well, I used to work as a CNA."

"Used to?" he repeats. "Why'd you stop, the pay too crappy or something?"

"No," she bites out, digging her nails into her arms to keep herself from saying something she doesn't mean to, and to keep from swinging a punch at him.

"Then why?" Bellamy asks. "Scrubs not fashionable enough for you? Get puked on by one too many kids?"

"I don't want to talk about it," she says instead, staring resolutely at the wall across the room from her.

There's a pause, and then Bellamy lets out an exaggerated sigh.

"Here," he says, and thrusts his hand in front of her face.

Clarke pulls the towel away gently, and winces on Bellamy's behalf, because a gash that deep has got to hurt. It's not straight, but it's more of a clean cut than a tear, which is good. Still, the way it curves from the bottom of his ring finger to the outside of his palm means he's not going to be able to use it much while it heals.

She pokes the end of his pinky finger with her nail. "Can you feel that?"

"Yeah. Am I not supposed to?"

"No, feeling is good. It means you didn't sever a nerve." She pokes the end of his ring finger, too, and he nods. "I think you're going to be fine. And you didn't even bleed out on the way here."

Bellamy snorts and pulls his hand back, wrapping the towel around it again. "You still took the long way, princess."

Clarke rolls her eyes. "How the hell'd you manage a gash like that, anyway?"

"Your goddamn car fell apart on me. Why are you still driving that piece of shit? It's like a hundred years old."

"Hey, don't bash on my car! That car is the most reliable damn thing on the road."

Bellamy gives her a look of utter incredulity. "It's falling apart."

Clarke just glares at him. "It's not that bad."

He snorts. "That car is not worth the cost to repair it, seriously. With the upkeep on that lemon, you could easily afford a car that doesn't fall apart when you touch it. Hell, you could probably drive a new one off the lot."

"I like my car, okay?"

Bellamy shifts in his chair. "This I have to hear."

Clarke shrugs. "My dad gave it to me when I turned sixteen, and it's seen me through a lot."

"Like what, the apocalypse?" he replies.

She smiles faintly. "Close enough."

The door to the waiting room opens.

"You're up," Jackson says, beckoning to Bellamy.

Bellamy stands but then hesitates, glancing at Clarke out of the corner of his eye.

"Yes?" she says, raising an eyebrow.

"Uh." He clears his throat, squares his shoulders. "Nothing."

Clarke watches as he slowly trudges to where Jackson is propping open the door, waiting; Jackson catches her eye over Bellamy's shoulder and gives her a wry grin.

Clarke sighs and bites back a smile.

"I should probably go with you while you get your stitches," she says, standing up. "So I know what to tell Raven about how much work you're allowed to do."

Bellamy's body relaxes a little, even though he doesn't look at her as he gives her a one-shouldered shrug.

"Whatever, princess," he sneers.

Clarke follows them back and sits on the stool next to the exam table while Bellamy's vitals are recorded. Jackson tries to make small talk with Bellamy as he efficiently cleans the cut and starts with the stitches, but Bellamy's not exactly in a talking mood. She can see the muscles in his jaw jump a little every time Jackson tugs, and the knuckles of his free hand are bone white, he's clenching his fist so hard.

"Good grief," she gripes, grabbing his fist and pulling at his fingers until they flex open. "You're going to need stitches on both hands if you don't ease up."

"Shut up."

"You get a lollipop and a sticker at the end if you're good," she tells him, and his fingers tighten around hers with the next pass of the needle. "I mean, it's you, so being good is probably out of the question, but still."

"I hate you," he grumbles.

Clarke gives him a winning smile.

There's silence through the next pass of the needle, and then Jackson asks, "Clarke, how's your mom?"

"Good. We had dinner last week, and went out to St. Ivan's to see my dad."

"Oh, that's right." Jackson gives Clarke a sad smile as he ties off the last suture. "Three years, isn't it?"

Clarke nods, and she doesn't realize she's squeezing Bellamy's hand until he's squeezing back. She pulls her hand away. "Well, would you look at that," she says to Bellamy. "And you still didn't bleed out."

"You're never going to let that go, are you?" he complains as Jackson cleans Bellamy's hand and wraps it up.

"Probably not," Clarke tells him. "But you were passably good; if you ask nicely, Harper might give you your lollipop and sticker."

Jackson gives Bellamy a couple prescriptions, instructions on keeping the cut clean, and more than enough gauze. Harper gives Bellamy a lollipop and a sticker, but only after he smiles and says please.

Outside, Bellamy peels the backing off the sticker and stuffs it in his pocket. "Aren't you jealous of my dinosaur sticker?" he asks around the bright orange sucker in his mouth.

Clarke laughs. "Super jealous."

"Well, since you deigned to let me hold your hand while I got stabbed repeatedly with a needle, you can have the sticker." The way the bandage is wrapped basically robs him of all manual dexterity, so he has to use both hands to stick it to her shirt.

"Whoa, watch where you're putting those fingers, Gimpy."

Bellamy looks horrified. "I didn't mean—"

Clarke gives him a saucy grin and unlocks the truck. He hadn't touched anything, but it's nice to know that he isn't a total lecher. (He did, however, put the dinosaur on upside-down.)

* * *

When Clarke drops Bellamy off at the shop and tells Raven about the diagnosis—stitches need to stay in for two weeks, and he shouldn't be using the hand much in the meantime—it's with a lot of groaning and complaining that Raven promises to finish up the repairs to Clarke's car.

A couple days later, Clarke walks into the shop to pick up her car. Bellamy's nowhere to be seen, and Raven's got a glare on her face that she immediately redirects from her computer to Clarke.

"What?" Clarke says immediately. "I didn't do anything!"

"Tell that to my shadow," Raven grumbles. She looks back to her monitor and moves her computer mouse vigorously over the mousepad.

Clarke glances around, wondering if maybe Raven finally called Wick down to help with her computer. But she doesn't see him, or anyone else for that matter; it's after closing, so the waiting area is deserted. "Um, Raven, we're the only ones here."

"Yeah, now," Raven retorts. "Because I told Bellamy to get far the fuck away from me."

"Bellamy? Why?" Clarke asks slowly.

"You'd think that piece of shit you call a car was his, he was so uptight about the repairs," Raven says, and slaps her computer monitor with an angry sound.

"What do you mean?"

"Just that he bugged the shit out of me the whole time," Raven explains distractedly, rifling through a stack of paperwork. "Hovering over my shoulder and pointing out every little part and procedure as if I'm not the best mechanic in this whole goddamned town."

"Well," Clarke says. "He can't do much with his injury. He's probably just restless."

"Trust me, Clarke," Raven says, pulling on her jacket and grabbing her bag. "We have plenty of other jobs he could handle, even with a bum hand."

Raven follows Clarke home, and it's a good thing, because it dies halfway there and she has to call a tow truck again. By the time the tow truck comes and takes Clarke's car back to the shop, it's way past dinner, so they swing through a drive-thru on the way back to Clarke's place.

They're ten minutes into a cheesy rom-com when Raven's phone starts going crazy.

Raven grabs it and silences it as quickly as she can, but now Clarke's interested.

"Who's blowing up your phone, Reyes?"

"Nobody's blowing up my phone," Raven argues, reading. "Just a couple of messages about work stuff."

"Right. Work stuff. Like, owning-a-business, can't-get-the-computer-to-work, geek-squad kind of work stuff?"

Raven's pause is a little too long for Clarke to believe her denial.

"He is pretty cute," Clarke says. "And he's smart. You could do worse." (She had done worse; Finn had been only passably cute and of slightly-above-average intelligence.)

"He's also cocky and annoying," Raven says, even as she taps out a reply.

"How many times has he asked you to go out with him?"

Raven chokes on her soda. "Okay, first of all, I'm not going out with my damn geek squad guy. Second—" She holds up a finger, and then drops it. "Implied, or explicit?"

"Both."

"At least once a day."

Clarke grins over the top of her soda. "He likes you," she sings.

"Oh, shut up." Raven's cheeks flush.

"And you like him, too, even though you say he's annoying."

"You're annoying," Raven grumbles. "Besides, I can't go out with him. He's working for me."

"For now." Clarke wiggles her eyebrows. "But he's not going to be working for you forever. I mean, at some point that computer's going to either burst into flames or just flat-out quit on you."

"Well, right now the damn thing does its job, and dating Wick's not an issue," Raven replies. "Now shut up, Channing Tatum's shirtless on TV."

Clarke sighs dramatically, but turns her attention back to the movie.

* * *

Raven ends up spending the night—she moaned something about junk-food-drunk and too-sexy abs, and passed out on the couch—so she gives Clarke a ride to work the next morning.

Just as Clarke's settling in at her desk for the day, her phone buzzes.

She pulls it out of her purse and swipes at the screen, expecting it to be her mother texting her good morning like she does sometimes, or maybe Raven if she got stopped at the light on Jefferson that takes forever to turn green again.

But it's not either of them; instead, it's an unknown number. Yet the second Clarke reads the message, she rolls her eyes because she knows exactly who it is.

AGAIN, princess? A picture of her car on the lift quickly follows.

Clarke hesitates, then adds the number to her contacts under Bellamy Baneofmyexistence.

Hey, don't blame my car for your shoddy repair job, she replies after contemplating the screen for a minute.

If her highness bothered to think, she would remember that RAVEN did all the repairs last time

Her phone buzzes again before she can reply with a reminder that Raven's going to have to do the repairs this time too, seeing as his hand has a solid ten days before the stitches come out.

I know how to keep a motor running

Her fingers tap out I'll hold you to that, Blake, and her fingers hit send before the double meaning of his words—and hers—really registers in her brain.

"Shit," Clarke says aloud, and then cringes when several of her coworkers look her way.

* * *

It haunts her for the rest of the day. She stops by Raven's shop on her way home from work (okay, she goes out of her way to check on the repairs), and finds Raven's desk empty of everything: computer, papers, pencils, and Raven herself.

She texts Raven a picture of the empty desk and a question mark. Raven texts back a picture of her computer in pieces on a table in front of a grinning blond guy, and an exclamation point.

Looks like a fun date, Clarke replies.

it's so not a date i TOLD you i am NOT going out with him.

Clarke laughs because it's absurd and also because Raven is probably having a really intense conversation about computer parts that is simultaneously bone-dead boring and (at least for Raven) super hot.

She hears the clatter of a tool and looks out the little window to see a pair of denim-clad legs sticking out from under her car. She storms out into the garage. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she demands.

Another tool drops, this one accompanied by a curse. Bellamy rolls out from under her car, his good hand on his face. "I'm fixing your fucking car," he says.

"You're not supposed to fix my car. You're not even supposed to be working with that hand." She crosses her arms.

He gets up, rubbing his face.

"What the fuck happened to your face?" she asks.

He pulls his hand away and smirks at her. "It got pretty," he says, and waits a beat before adding, "I dropped a wrench."

She can see the line purpling on his cheekbone; any higher or closer to his nose, and he'd have had a black eye for sure. "Shouldn't have been working when you're not supposed to."

"You're not the boss of me."

"Really? That's the card you're going to play?" she asks him. "You're a child."

"Remind me never to ask you for a bandaid, princess," he says. "You're not very nice to hurt children."

She rolls her eyes. "What, do you want me to get you some ice and kiss it better?"

His eyes widen and then he does this thing with his tongue and his lips and Clarke's about to insist on taking back the words that just fell out of her mouth when he speaks.

"Yes."

"...Oh."

They stare at each other for one beat, two.

And then they're kissing, Bellamy splaying his hands across her back to hold Clarke firmly against him while her own hands dive into his hair. Some part of her points out that it's not his mouth that he hurt, and that she's wearing a white sundress, and that he's no doubt covered in grease sure to ruin it, but she doesn't care.

At all.

When his hands circle her waist and his fingers flex against her, first she hums into his mouth and presses herself harder against him. But then his fingers tighten and she realizes—

Clarke pulls away from his mouth and slaps his arms away from her. "Oh my god, don't lift me with your fucked up hand!"

He scowls at her, hair even more mussed than usual from her fingers. "This car's gotta be good for something," he grumbles, gesturing at the closed hood.

Clarke's briefly distracted by thoughts of what he wanted her on the hood for.

Then she smiles, nice and slow, and watches the wary look take over his face.

"Ask nicely and say please." It takes a bit for her words to register, but she knows the second they do.

He gives her a wicked, wicked smile. "Are you going to give me a sticker and a lollipop?"

"Fresh out of those, sorry," she says. She's about to make some comment about having a different kind of treat for him when she hears the slam of a car door.

They're not actually kissing, but Bellamy jumps away from Clarke anyway. A girl with Bellamy's jawline is standing ten feet away, an annoyed scowl on her face.

"Octavia!" Bellamy says, and then smacks his face with his bum hand. He winces. "Fuck. I forgot—"

"Yeah, you did. Thanks a ton for leaving me stranded on campus. I had to get a ride from Geek Squad," she says, jerking her head toward the tiny electric car that's leaving the shop's parking lot.

"I am really sorry. It's just this car—well, you know."

Octavia gives Clarke a withering look. "Yeah. I'm sure it's really difficult. I'm gonna go hang out in the office until you're done with... whatever you're doing."

Bellamy turns to Clarke, and she just knows he's going to apologize for his sister's behavior when he should be apologizing for his, so she nips that right in the bud with a good hard punch to the arm.

"Ow!"

"You're terrible!" she snaps. "Abandoning your little sister to do work you're not even supposed to be doing anyway." She glares at him and storms away to the office.

Octavia's trying to get some Skittles out of one of the candy dispensers. "You don't want to eat those," Clarke says. "They're beyond stale."

"I already put a quarter in," Octavia grumbles. "Maybe I'll throw them at someone."

"Give some to me. I want to throw them at your asshole brother."

Octavia snorts. "You don't have to pretend to hate him. You're Clarke, right?"

"Yeah," says Clarke. "And who said anything about pretending?" She holds her hand out expectantly until Octavia rolls her eyes and pours some Skittles into her palm.

"I bet you ten bucks I can get him in the head," Octavia says.

"Like you could miss," Clarke scoffs. "Your brother's got the biggest head of anyone I've ever met."

"Well." Octavia pauses. "You're not wrong." She cracks a smile, and Clarke grins back.

They're both snickering when the door to the office opens, and they glance over to see Bellamy standing frozen in the doorway, looking between the two of them. Clarke catches Octavia's eye, and Octavia nods.

"Fucking—princess!" Bellamy bats futilely as they pelt him with the stale candy. "Octavia!"

"Taste the rainbow, Bell!" Octavia yells, and then she does get him in the head with a red Skittle.

"What the fuck is wrong you?" he demands when they run out of ammo. Clarke ignores his glare to return Octavia's fist-bump.

"Nice aim," Clarke compliments her.

"You're not so bad yourself," Octavia replies.

Bellamy makes a strangled noise. "You," he says, pointing at his sister. "Don't talk to her. And you, don't talk to her either," he tells Clarke.

"Funnily enough, I still don't take orders from you," she says, and reaches into her dress pocket for her phone. If her car's still shot, she'll have to take a cab home.

"I'm the one who's going to have to clean those up, you know," he says. "I thought you didn't want me stressing my hand."

"It'll be easier on your stitches than messing around in my car," Clarke retorts.

Bellamy blinks at her. Clarke's face floods with heat. "Messing around in my car's engine," she clarifies hastily.

"I'd just stop now," Octavia tells her, eyebrow raised. "You're not helping things."

Clarke clears her throat nervously. "Right. Uh, I'm gonna go... call a cab." She gestures with her phone and starts toward the door.

"Why?" Octavia asks immediately. "Bellamy can give you a ride home. Right, Bell?"

"It's fine," Clarke says quickly.

"No, really," Octavia insists. "Unless my brother has an objection?"

Bellamy looks uncomfortable, but he says, "No. I'll—yeah. Sure. "

The grin Octavia's wearing is the grin of a devious mastermind. "See? Come on, Clarke. Let Bellamy give you a ride home."

"I'm not getting out of this, am I?" she asks Bellamy, and he just shakes his head.

"I'll get the truck," he mutters.

"Don't sound so excited!" Octavia calls after him.

* * *

Octavia refuses to sit in the middle for reasons she won't actually explain, so Clarke is crammed into the center seat of the little pickup, and even though none of them are particularly big people, Clarke's attempts to keep a few inches between herself and Bellamy fail spectacularly. The suspension in the pickup is stiff, so every time they go over the tiniest bump in the road, Clarke's thigh rubs against Bellamy's jeans. On top of that, Bellamy's not a particularly conservative driver, so every time he turns, Clarke finds herself pressed up against one Blake or the other. And somehow it seems like it's always Bellamy.

He stops in front of a bookshop-slash-coffee-house in downtown and growls at Octavia that he'll see her later and to text him if she's going to be later than she planned. Octavia gives Clarke the cheeriest goodbye ever, and then Clarke and Bellamy are alone in the truck, and Clarke scoots over into the passenger seat.

Bellamy clears his throat. "Sorry about my sister. She goes overboard sometimes."

Clarke shrugs. "I like her," she tells him, and he looks horrified.

"I think we'll probably be best friends," she adds, a little too gleefully but unable to resist. "And just wait until I introduce her to Raven."

She can't keep her smirk hidden any longer, and Bellamy quickly adopts a sneer when he notices.

"Shut up, princess," he says, and pulls into the street. "Where to?"

Clarke doesn't say anything.

"I can't drive if you don't tell me where you live," he says, glancing over at her when they stop at the light.

She shrugs and points at her closed mouth.

"Oh, for—tell me where you live, then shut up," Bellamy says, voice exasperated.

"You should be more careful about what you say," Clarke says. "I live in the Ark Street complex."

Bellamy snorts. "How was I supposed to know you'd listen to me for once in your life?"

Clarke just grins and turns to watch the streets pass. It's a strangely companionable silence, though for some reason it seems to take a little longer than Clarke expected after the speedy trip to Octavia's work. The gate to her complex is locked, and Clarke digs around for her keycard.

"Here," she says, handing it to Bellamy; their fingers brush as he plucks it from her grasp and Clarke absolutely refuses to remember how those fingers felt elsewhere on her body.

"Unit forty-seven," she says, and her voice cracks a little. Clarke clears her throat and gestures. "All the way at the other end of the parking lot."

Bellamy maneuvers the pickup into a guest spot, kills the engine. The easy silence isn't so easy anymore, and it feels like Clarke is glued to her seat.

"I'll walk you to your door," Bellamy says eventually. "For safety."

"You can see my door from the truck," Clarke says, fiddling with her still-buckled seatbelt.

Bellamy reaches over and pops the seatbelt button, and Clarke's stomach totally doesn't flip a little when his knuckles bump against her hip. When she hops out of the truck, Bellamy does, too.

"I can walk to my door by myself," she tells him.

Bellamy shrugs and walks with her anyway, his good hand stuffed in a pocket. It seems to take forever, even though it's maybe five hundred feet and one set of stairs. She definitely doesn't need him to walk her up the stairs, but he does it anyway, and stands awkwardly at the door as Clarke digs around for her keys. "Need a hand?" he asks.

"Not yours," she says. "I just heard them—" He cuts her off with a sudden press of his lips on hers right as her fingers find the little metal bastards she's been looking for. She melts a little into the way he pulls her to him with his good hand, and sue her if she finds it kind of hot that he holds up his bandaged hand to show her he's not using it, then puts it on the back of her neck so he can tangle his fingers in her hair.

"Don't need me to walk you to your door, huh?" he jokes.

"You started it," she says. "I bet you've been planning this the whole way here."

He shrugs, and she can feel his hand through her sundress, warm against the small of her back. "Wasn't exactly a plan, but I can't say I didn't think about it."

Clarke kisses him again, and she means for it to be short, except he sort of backs her slowly up against the door and his hands are sort of all over her and she really just forgets to stop kissing him.

Just as Clarke lets out a needy little sound, she hears someone clear their throat in a very loud, conspicuous manner. Clarke freezes, peeks around Bellamy; her neighbor is watching them with an arch expression.

"Evening, Mrs. Kane," Clarke squeaks. "This is my, um—" She searches her brain frantically for a term to explain what he is to her. "—mechanic."

Bellamy snorts and pulls away; her body erupts in goosebumps at the sudden lack of warmth.

The elderly lady raises an eyebrow. "I see. Is his specialty body work?"

"We weren't—he was just—"

"I was just leaving," Bellamy interrupts. "Nice to meet you, ma'am."

His eyes meet Clarke's briefly, and something about his expression gives Clarke a sinking feeling in her gut.

"Are you sure?" Clarke blurts out. "I could make coffee or something, before you go."

He shakes his head. "I've got to head out. Make sure Octavia got home safely."

Clarke frowns at the blatant lie—Octavia's shift couldn't possibly be over yet—but if he guessed that she's not going to make a scene, he guessed right. Mrs. Kane is sweet, but she's a terrible gossip.

She also has Abigail Griffin's phone number, for some reason, and Clarke really doesn't need Mrs. Kane telling her mom about the strange men Clarke kisses and then argues with.

"Okay," she says. "Thanks for the ride."

He nods silently, then leaves.

* * *

She feels oddly unsettled once she's alone in her apartment, so she busies herself with washing her face and putting on pajamas. But then she notices the grease stains on her sundress, and she feels strange all over again as she leaves it to soak in dish soap.

When she's curled up in bed with a mug of tea and a book, she finally texts him.

You didn't have to go.

I didn't want to offend the neighbors, he replies.

She isn't sure if he's being serious, or if he's teasing. Offend the neighbors? Really?

His reply takes longer this time. Mrs. Kane seemed like a nice lady. Clarke is in the middle of formulating a reply when a second message pops up. I didn't want her to hit me with her handbag or something.

Clarke laughs, because Mrs. Kane probably would have, if she'd thought she needed to. She settles in with her book and her tea, and gets so caught up in her book that she doesn't go to sleep until almost two in the morning.

* * *

Bellamy's not at the shop when Clarke picks up her car, and Raven's feet are sticking out from under a dark green minivan. She doesn't stop working, just waves her foot at Clarke and promises to see her later.

He's not there two days later when Clarke drops off the jacket Raven left at her house, either, and Raven just shrugs and says he's out making a house call. Clarke texts him a thank-you for fixing her car, and he just tells her you're welcome. They don't exchange any messages for a few days; Bellamy's next message is just to see how her car's holding up, and when she tells him it's still running, he just says Good with a smiley face and that's it for another week.

* * *

Her mother insists on her attendance at the Jahas' annual Earth Day dinner party, even though Clarke's been so busy at work she'd rather go home and sleep like the dead. But she dresses up, drinks coffee, and drives the fifteen miles out of town to the ranch anyway, and she has fun hanging out with Wells and Mel and her old high school friends.

Most of them actually have a little too much fun, and everyone but Clarke elects to crash on the Jahas' floor. Clarke feels a little selfish for not offering rides to any of her drunk friends, but she's been dreaming about her cozy flannel sheets for hours and she just wants to go straight home.

"You're still driving that thing?" Wells slurs when he walks her out to her car.

Clarke offers him a tired smile. "You're surprised?"

"Guess not," Wells yawns, and gives her a hug and a sloppy kiss on the cheek. "Drive safe."

She promises to do so, slides into her car, and waves as she drives away from the ranch.

She's still five miles outside of town when the car dies. There's no sputtering, no clunking, no low-gas-tank warning. It just dies, and Clarke barely keeps herself from screaming in frustration as she guides it to the shoulder.

Once stopped, Clarke sighs and pulls out her cell. Thankfully, she has service. She goes to her contacts, hesitates over the Jahas' home number—Wells may be drunk, but his dad would probably be willing to come help her.

But instead of hitting call, or scrolling to her mother's number, or to Raven's, her fingers hit Bellamy Baneofmyexistence.

And it starts to ring.

"Fuck," Clarke whispers, already regretting it, but she knows hanging up early has the potential to be just as embarrassing as talking to him. So she prays he won't pick up, and if he ever asks she can just say it was a misdial—

"Princess?"

Clarke swallows. "Uh, hi."

"Hey." A beat of silence. "Everything okay?"

"Not really," Clarke says, then waits.

It doesn't take long.

"Fuck, are you kidding me?"

"I'm stranded out on Old Highway 101," she admits. "Can you…can you come get me?"

"I don't make house calls, princess."

"Well, I'm not at home. I'm five miles out of town in the middle of nowhere."

"I'm not a tow truck, or a goddamn taxi."

Clarke's going to throw something, honestly. "Fine. I'll call someone else."

She hangs up. Her mother left earlier, and is probably in bed already, so she calls a tow-truck.

Dax says he's on a call way out of the other side of town and won't be able to get to her car for at least two hours. She gives him her location anyway, because he'll pick up her car whether she's there or not, and then scrolls through her contacts looking for someone else to call.

Raven doesn't answer, which means her not-a-date with Wick is probably going so well that Raven's going to be in a terrible mood for a week. She's hesitating on whether to call a cab or her mother when Bellamy calls back.

"What?" she snaps. "I'm trying to find a ride home, and I'd rather not be stuck out here all night."

He heaves a sigh. "Where are you?"

"I told you, I'm out 101. Five miles, maybe."

"Are your lights on?"

Clarke fiddles with the controls. "No. Everything's off."

"Don't turn this into a horror movie," he said. Clarke hears the rumble of an engine. "I'm on my way."

"I thought you said you didn't make house calls."

His voice gets all tinny, and she can hear the background hum of his truck. "I don't. But you said you weren't at home."

"So what's that about you're not a taxi?"

"I'm not a goddamn taxi, because I'm actually going to come get you, and then I'm going to fix your fucking car and try not to break a leg while I'm at it."

"Don't do me any favors," Clarke snaps.

"Princess doesn't want to owe her mechanic any favors?" His voice is acidic.

"Fuck you," Clarke says, and hangs up.

But she doesn't call anyone else, just sits and waits, and Bellamy's pickup is pulling up across from her within twenty minutes.

He slams the door, stalks across the old road and bangs on her window until she shoves open her door.

"What?"

"Get in the fucking truck."

She glares at him, but turns to grab her stuff out of her car. She slams her door shut and walks over to the passenger door of the truck, conscious of Bellamy's footsteps close behind her.

Clarke yanks at the handle, but the door doesn't budge.

"It's locked," she says flatly, turning around; she starts when she sees how close Bellamy is to her.

"One more thing," he says. His arms cage her in against the truck, and he leans in close to her, lips so close to hers Clarke is half a thought away from kissing them, or maybe biting them. "Fuck you, too, princess."

Then he's halfway around the truck, twirling his keys as he heads to the driver's side, and Clarke realizes he'd unlocked the door while he—while he—fuck.

Clarke sucks her cheeks to keep in the words that she wants to hurl at him, and climbs into the truck.

"I hate you," she whispers as he starts the drive back, urging the lights of the town to come closer, wanting more than anything for them to be at her apartment already so she can get the fuck out of this truck and the fuck away from Bellamy Blake.

Bellamy laughs, but it's not a happy or amused sound. "Trust me, princess. You hate me about as much as I hate you."

"You said that backward," Clarke snaps.

"I know what I said."

Clarke sulks until Bellamy's pulling up to the gate of her apartment complex. She hands him the key card, and the amount of skin-to-skin contact is anything but accidental. Bellamy's doing it on purpose, driving her insane, and when he stops near her door to let someone back out of a parking spot, she bolts out of the truck before Bellamy can get out and walk her to her apartment.

* * *

He sends her a message as she's crawling into her wonderful, well-earned flannel sheets. There's no text, just a picture of her key card in his hand. She can see the part of the scar on his hand; it looks like it's healing well, which is good because he's probably the one who's going to fix her car. Sshe doesn't need him bleeding through his bandages when he does.

She doesn't even know what to say to that, because honestly it's her own damn fault for not taking the card back from him before she jumped out of the truck. After a few minutes of deliberation, she replies, I need that.

I know is his immediate reply, and because she's already cozy in her flannel sheets, Clarke just locks her phone, sets it on her nightstand, and turns off the lamp.

Her phone buzzes a minute later. Should I bring it back?

She groans and rolls her eyes. Is he really going to do this right now? No, she replies. I'm going to bed. I'll come get it tomorrow.

His next message is a picture of her key card with a sticky note on it. The sticky note has a poorly-drawn sad-face and the words save me scrawled on it.

Oh my god, how drunk are you? she replies.

I'm sorry, my brother doesn't know how to talk to girls, he responds, and it takes Clarke's tired brain a good minute before she realizes Octavia must have swiped his phone.

Your brother doesn't know how to talk to human beings, Clarke texts, then turns her phone on silent and passes out.

* * *

Thankfully, the next day is Sunday, so Clarke sleeps until late. When she wakes up, she ignores the multiple texts waiting for her until she's showered and calm enough to try reading her messages.

The first is a phone number with text me! xoxO added to the end. She goes ahead and adds Octavia's number to her contacts; her brother's mood swings may give Clarke fucking whiplash, but Clarke wouldn't mind being friends with the younger, more-likeable, and all-around better Blake.

The second message is from the real Bellamy, it seems, and it's a captionless picture of her car in front of Reyes Automotive that morning.

Clarke frowns.

Don't blame me for ruining your weekend, she texts. I know for a fact the shop isn't open on Sundays.

Then she texts Octavia, asking if Bellamy took the keycard with him to the shop; she replies with a thumbs-up emoji.

She doesn't feel quite up to dealing with Bellamy yet, so the cab she calls ends up dropping her off at Grounders. She's never been there before, but she's hungry and it looked intriguing when Bellamy dropped Octavia off that time.

Clarke orders a chai latte and a danish, plops into a chair in the nonfiction corner, and messes around on her phone while she pretends she doesn't notice Octavia heading toward her.

"Are you fake texting?" Octavia asks skeptically.

"It's super important," Clarke mumbles, and finishes setting the crappy sad-face doodle as the picture ID for Bellamy Baneofmyexistence.

Octavia drops into the chair facing Clarke. "Bellamy wanted me to bring you your keycard," she says. After a beat, she adds, "I told him no."

"You could have," Clarke says. "He's always in a shitty mood when he's working on my car."

Octavia shrugs. "He's always in a shitty mood, period."

"Didn't seem to be in a shitty mood when you showed up at the shop the other day," Clarke grumbles. "Not until the Skittles thing, anyway."

"Having his hands all over a hot blonde usually improves his mood."

Clarke bristles at the thought of being just a "hot blonde," even if she is attractive and light-haired. "He doesn't have to be an ass. Or work on Sunday. The shop's not even open."

"He likes you, I guess."

Clarke snorts. "Right. That's why he's constantly snippy with me."

"No, that's why he's working on your car on a Sunday. And why he searches for parts on eBay. Do people even still use eBay?"

"Why is he searching for parts on the internet?" Clarke asks, frowning.

"Because your car's old as dirt and nobody makes parts for it any more."

"He never said anything about that."

Octavia shrugs. "I don't know. He got pissed this morning when he couldn't find a part for it."

Clarke gets up out of her chair. "If he has to find parts online, I don't know why he bothers fixing it. I'll just... figure something else out." She shakes her head and walks out to the curb; she's lucky enough that the cab is just around the corner, and in ten minutes, she's walking up to the shop. One of the garage doors is open, and Bellamy's legs are sticking out from underneath her car.

"So what's this about looking for car parts on eBay?"

The tinkering noises stop for a few seconds, then resume.

"Your keycard's on the counter," she hears.

She kicks his nearest leg and ignores the curses that echo up to her.

"Bellamy, don't ignore me when I'm talking to you."

"As if you'd ever let me," he mutters, rolling out from under the car. "What do you want?"

Clarke glares down at him. "What the hell is up with eBay?" she says through gritted teeth.

"None of your fucking business," he replies, and starts to roll back.

She kicks him harder.

"Fucking—stop it!"

"Answer me," she demands.

"It's not enough that your goddamned car's maimed me multiple times?" he says, brandishing his scarred hand at her. "You have to get in on the action?"

"I'll do whatever the hell I want," she snaps, "until you fucking answer me."

Bellamy rolls all the way out from the car and springs to his feet.

"Take your damn keycard and leave," he says, stalking forward until he's inches away from her.

"No."

"Leave."

"Tell me," she counters. When she crosses her arms in front of her, they brush against his chest, he's so close.

"No," he snarls.

"Just tell me," Clarke says. "What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to fix your piece of shit car!" he yells. Though his voice is loud enough to rattle her bones, Clarke's the furthest thing from afraid. "It's my fucking job!"

"It's not your job to spend your time off looking for parts on fucking eBay, Bellamy," she says.

"It is if I fucking say it is," he replies.

"Just—just tell me if it's done for good," Clarke says. "I'll just—figure something else out."

He just glares at her, seemingly even angrier.

"It's a fucking mess but I'm not about to let it fucking die on you!"

Clarke's fingers dig into her arms. "What is your deal?"

"Are you shitting me? What happened to my car's a goddamn champion, Bellamy?" His voice goes way too many octaves up when he imitates her. "Your damn hand-me-down car that you insist on driving because your dad gave it to you, and now he's dead."

Clarke steps back, her arms falling to her sides. "I just want you to fix my car," she snaps. "I don't need you trying to fix me. I'm fine."

He looks so idiotic, gaping at her like he can't believe the words that are hanging between them. But then he gets that little crease between his eyebrows and bites, "Do you want me to fix the damn car or not?"

"I don't want you to fix it if it's not fixable! I'll just—find some other solution."

"Your car hasn't been fixable for a while, princess," he says, like it's common knowledge and she's just stupid.

"Then why are you still fixing it?" she snaps, because if she's stupid for not knowing it can't be fixed, he's a moron for trying to fix it.

"Because you love this fucking pile of shit!" he shouts, and then he runs a hand over his face. "I joked about you needing a new car and you practically tore my head off for even suggesting it."

"That doesn't answer my question," she huffs.

"Are you—" Bellamy throws his hands in the air and turns away from her. He pinches the bridge of his nose, and then he moves toward her, takes her face in his hands, and kisses her. His fingertips press into her skin, and when he pulls back to look at her, she doesn't know whether he's angry, or supplicant. "Does that answer your question?" he asks sharply.

"I think I still need a little clarification," Clarke says breathlessly, and pulls him by the collar back to her mouth. His hands slide to her neck, his thumbs brushing her jaw and his fingers tickling her nape, and he's holding her far too tenderly for the fierce way his mouth moves against hers. But Clarke likes it.

It gets to the point where if Bellamy kisses her like this a second longer, she's going to say screw the open garage door and the lack of a bed—they can revisit the idea of the hood of her car.

But instead his kiss turns achingly gentle, and when he finally moves back, Clarke's eyes burn for reasons she doesn't care to examine. She blinks rapidly until the blur in her vision disappears and she focuses on Bellamy. He's frowning, the little crease still between his eyebrows, but the effect is kind of ruined by his swollen lips.

Clarke struggles to find something to break the charged silence, but when "Thank you" slips out of her mouth, she wants to bury herself in the ground.

At the very least, her words shock the frown off his face. The corners of his mouth quirk up in a reluctant smile. "Uh. You're welcome, I guess."

"I meant for the car," Clarke says, though she can't help smiling too. "You didn't…you didn't need to do that for me."

"You don't need to thank me. I don't do anything I don't want to do."

She sets her mouth. "Then if you won't accept my thanks, at the very least you can let me make it up to you."

His eyebrows skyrocket. "And how do you propose to do that?"

Before she can lose her nerve, she replies, "Dinner. My place. If you want to, I mean."

"Yeah," he says immediately. "I mean, I don't have anything else planned."

Clarke gives him a funny look. "I haven't even told you when."

Bellamy's freckles turn a few shades pinker. "Well, I probably don't have plans."

"How's Friday?"

"Friday's good," he says. He sounds a little out of breath, like he's trying not to sneeze. "Do you want me to bring anything?"

"Just you." She's smiling like an idiot, and so she ducks her head and turns away before she can do anything really stupid, like maybe back him against her car.

"Where you headed, princess?" he asks, his fingers brushing her arm.

"Oh, you know." She shrugs and flashes him a smile over her shoulder. "Back to my kingdom."

"Let me give you a ride," he says. "There's not much else I can do today anyway."

"Are you going to let the neighbors scare you off again?" she teases.

He rolls his eyes and starts pulling the garage door down. "I don't know. Are you going to pretend like you barely know me?"

Clarke bristles. "I did barely know you."

"Right, right, yeah." He fishes his keys out of his pocket and starts locking up. He leaves the office for last, kicking a Skittle out from under the row of chairs by the window. He picks it up, shakes it at her, and then tosses it in the trash can. "And weeks later I'm still finding Skittles," he mutters, locking the office door behind them. "I don't even like Skittles."

"Hey, that wasn't entirely me. Octavia was the one trying to get Skittles out of the machine in the first place. I just told her they were no good for eating is all."

Bellamy frowns. "Don't try to pin your bad-girl shenanigans on my sweet, innocent baby sister."

Clarke bursts out laughing as they walk toward his truck. "Are we talking about the same girl? The one who likes to throw candy and steal your phone?"

He looks like he's on the verge of cracking a smile until she says the thing about the phone.

"Wait, what do you mean, steal my phone?"

Clarke stifles the last giggle and tucks some stray hair behind her ear. "Last night. You didn't notice this morning?"

Bellamy shakes his head, then pulls his phone out. She knows the second he recognizes Octavia's handiwork because he groans and drags a hand down his face.

"Jesus. I'm sorry," he says.

"I didn't mind," she replies honestly. "I really do like your sister."

Bellamy sighs and opens the truck door for her. "I was afraid of that."

Again, the drive is quiet and companionable, though the fluttery feeling she gets whenever she peeks over and catches him glancing at her is a bit distracting.

She'd grabbed her keycard while he complained about Skittles, and she hands it to him when they get to her complex.

"I need this back," she says sternly.

He rolls his eyes, and hands it back to her with a flourish before driving through and parking in front of her apartment.

"You going to walk me up again?" Clarke asks, unbuckling herself.

He glances at the clock in the dash and grimaces. "I would, but you hit me the last time I forgot to pick Octavia up. Her shift was over five minutes ago."

"Then go get her," Clarke says, exasperated, and opens the door.

"Hey," he says. When she turns back to him, he leans across the cab of the truck and plants a soft, sweet kiss on her mouth.

"Bye, princess," he says quietly.

"Bye, mechanic," she teases.

* * *

It's the longest week ever. Clarke spends most of Monday thinking about what to make for dinner on Friday—so much of Monday, in fact, that she forgets she's got nothing in her fridge for dinner on Monday, so she ends up eating Spaghetti-Os and some dinner rolls left over from earlier in the week.

She spends most of Tuesday asking Octavia what her brother likes to eat, to which Octavia unhelpfully replies that Bellamy will eat just about anything, and honestly Clarke probably doesn't even need to make dinner, just have something in the fridge for after. Clarke chokes a little and flushes bright red when she thinks about what exactly "after" means, and the intern at the desk next to hers gives her a quizzical stare. "Sorry," Clarke mutters.

Seriously, though, Clarke texts back. Technically, she isn't supposed to be on her phone during a project session, but she's almost done, and she can always claim to be looking for resources or references or something.

Seriously, though, Octavia parrots.

Clarke rolls her eyes. You're not helping.

Skittles is Octavia's next suggestion, and Clarke rolls her eyes and goes back to work.

She doesn't forget to get groceries on Tuesday, but she eats Spaghetti-Os and dinner rolls again anyway because she's too busy searching Pinterest for something to make for dinner on Friday.

Wednesday is the day Clarke gets off early, and so it drags on forever. She spends her whole lunch break scrolling through more recipes on Pinterest and asking Octavia if Bellamy prefers pasta or potatoes, to which Octavia responds as unhelpfully as possible, and suggests maybe Clarke should ask Bellamy what he likes to eat. Clarke dismisses that as a stupid idea, because she doesn't want to spoil the surprise of whatever she doesdecide to make.

Thursday night, Clarke breaks down and tells Raven about her Friday plans with Bellamy.

"And you thought cooking for him would be a good idea?" Her friend's scathing voice comes over the phone crystal clear.

"I'm a good cook," Clarke insists. "I just can't decide what to cook. You're around him more; what does he eat?"

"Jesus, Clarke, I'm not his fucking mother. I have better things to do with my time than check on what he's having for lunch."

Clarke glares at her phone; she has Raven on speaker while she tries to come up with a grocery list for tomorrow night's dinner.

"How's Wick?" she asks snidely. There's a clang and a vicious curse.

"Fuck you," Raven replies. "Now I've got spaghetti sauce all over the fucking place."

Clarke crosses spaghetti off her mental list of potential meals.

"I'll let you deal with that; you're no help anyway," Clarke says, then adds, "Put that poor man out of his misery already and admit you like-like him."

She goes to hang up, but not before Raven retorts, "You first!"

Clarke ignores the mutant butterflies that swarm her stomach at Raven's words and goes to buy ingredients for enchiladas.

She stays up late preparing everything; when she gets home from work on Friday, she only has to slide the pan into the oven and change into something less...workish.

Clarke dithers in front of her closet until her phone rings—it's the complex gate, wanting her to verify her guest. She presses nine to let him in, then throws on her white sundress, wondering if he'll remember it.

When she opens the door at his knock, Bellamy's standing there with a bouquet of purple tulips and a pink pastry box; the collar of his button-down is damp from his still-drying curls.

"Hi," she says.

He shifts his weight from foot to foot. "Hi. Uh, I got, uh, flowers."

"You didn't have to."

"Well, I did." He arches an eyebrow at her. "Am I not allowed to bring flowers in?"

What? Clarke blinks and stares at him, and then says, "Oh, right. Sorry. Come in."

"Do you have a vase or something? And scissors?" he asks. He sets the pastry box on the counter and pushes her hand away when she tries to look inside. "No peeking, princess."

Clarke hands him the kitchen scissors and opens the cupboard above the refrigerator for a vase. She can't quite reach it, but before she can climb on the counter or get a stepstool, Bellamy's next to her, plucking the vase out with ease.

"I got it," he says with a smile. He fills it halfway, and then stands at the counter and meticulously trims each tulip before he puts it in the water with the others. Clarke busies herself setting the table and checking on the enchiladas, but she can hear him the whole time: snip... snip... snip... plop. He carries the flowers into the dining room when he's done and sets them on the table.

As he's cleaning up the leaves and stem ends and plastic bouquet wrapping and Clarke is setting the enchiladas and a spatula on the table, she wonders why he picked purple tulips. She doesn't particularly love tulips or purple, and it's not like either one is a super common choice for flowers. Still, they're pretty, the way they fade at the very tips of the petals almost to white, and the way they stand up even though they're way taller than her short little vase.

"So," she says when she sits down, nodding to the flowers. "Purple tulips?"

He starts to go to his chair, but then pauses to drop a chaste kiss on her mouth. He smells good—like, really good, all clean with that manly soap smell.

Clarke blinks at him as he sits, then smiles. "Don't think a kiss is going to get you out of answering."

He shrugs and looks at the food. "Those look…good."

Clarke tries not to take offense at the surprise in his tone. "I can cook," she says defensively. "Seriously, what is up with everyone thinking I can't cook?"

"I—"

"I'll have you know I'm a great cook," she grumbles, filling their plates. "I cook all the damn time. I'm practically a professional chef."

"Yeah?" Bellamy says, amusement lacing his voice. "What did you make this week, chef?"

Clarke pauses. He waits patiently. "Spaghetti-Os, but that doesn't mean anything."

He stares at her for a beat, then laughs so hard he snorts. "You eat Spaghetti-Os? Like out of a can?"

"Okay, shut up and eat your enchiladas."

She focuses on cutting her enchilada into bites, but glances up to see him grinning at his plate when he mumbles, "Princess eats Spaghetti-Os."

There are a few minutes of silence during which Clarke absolutely does not watch nervously as Bellamy takes his first bite. When his eyebrows shoot up and he starts practically inhaling the food, Clarke tries and fails to hide her own smile.

"So," she says when the silence is getting weird. "What's Octavia studying?"

"Oh, uh, psychology," he says. "She's almost done, though."

"I took an Abnormal Psych class in college," Clarke offers. "It was really neat."

Bellamy just nods and starts making designs in the enchilada sauce left on his plate.

Clarke frowns and uses a bare foot to nudge his shin under the table. "You'd've fit right in."

Bellamy glances up at her, a flush creeping into his cheeks.

"Mixed media, too, I guess," she says, pointing to his plate with her fork. "There's more enchiladas if you want some." She adds, "Unless you're saving room for dessert," right as she's putting a forkful of enchilada in her mouth.

The feet of Bellamy's chair scrape on the floor and his fork makes a loud clink on his plate when he stands up just enough to lean over the corner of the table and kiss her, heedless of the fact that she's got a full bite of enchilada in her mouth.

"Excuse you," she complains when he sits back down. "I'm eating."

He shrugs. "Don't care." He gives her a winning smile, and her irritation evaporates.

Clarke sets her fork on her plate and tries to stretch without looking weird, but she's pretty sure she looks stupid anyway, arching back into her chair.

Bellamy stacks all the utensils on her plate on top of his and gets up. Clarke follows him with the mostly-empty pan of enchiladas, and when she hears Bellamy rinsing dishes behind her while she puts the enchiladas in a tupperware, she says, "Just leave them in the sink."

"They've got tomato sauce on them," he tells her. "That shit will crust so hard it'll take an act of god to get it off the plate."

Clarke puts the leftovers in the fridge, and sidles around Bellamy to the pink pastry box on the counter.

"Hey, hey, hey!" He waves a soapy hand at her. "Leave those alone!"

Clarke gives him an ornery smile and slides a finger under the flap. "What if I don't want to?"

Bellamy doesn't even wipe his hands, just turns the tap off and moves between Clarke and the pastry box.

She tries to get around him, so he plants his dripping hands on her waist. The water soaks through the thin fabric quickly, making her squirm.

"Hey! What is it with you and messing up this dress?"

Bellamy smirks and starts wiping his hands on her with purpose; she tries to get away—how old is he, jesus—but he reverses them so he's crowding her against the counter.

"What can I say?" he says, voice low and teasing. "I like making excuses for you to take it off."

Clarke tips her head back and laughs until he covers her mouth with his, cool fingers moving to her face.

She worries for a second that she tastes like enchiladas, but then shrugs away the thought because so does he. Clarke kisses him back and goddoes he smell even better up close. She accidentally knocks the pastry box to the floor as she boosts herself up on the counter. Bellamy pulls away at the sound, blinking in confusion, but she just grabs him by the collar and tows him back to stand between her legs.

"Pay attention to me," she demands, and draws his lower lip into her mouth.

He huffs a laugh, but obliges her, kissing her so thoroughly she doesn't even realize she's wrapped her legs around his waist until his hands settle on her thighs.

Clarke's getting to the point where she's contemplating dragging him into her bedroom or just having her way with him right there in the kitchen. But then his lips slow, and he moves to press sweet, gentle kisses against her pulse-point until her heartbeat is as close to normal as possible when Bellamy Blake's mouth is anywhere near her body.

"Chocolate-frosted donuts," he says, lifting his head. "In the box."

Clarke perks up. "Really?"

"Really, really." He drops a sweet, short kiss on her lips. "Do you want one?"

"Yeah, they're my favorite." Clarke pulls him by the collar and kisses him again, and then he stoops to pick up the upturned pastry box. She jumps down and gets a couple of small plates from the cupboard.

The tumble to the floor has ruined the beautiful chocolate frosting, and the cake part of the donuts is a little banged up, but they'll taste just the same, so she puts one on each plate, hands one plate to Bellamy, and goes into the living room.

He follows her in and sits on the other end of the couch, so she slides her foot across the cushions and nudges his thigh with her toes. He smiles at her. "Hey, princess. Thanks for dinner. You make a pretty good enchilada."

"I'm glad you liked them," Clarke says with a smile. "I didn't know what you liked to eat."

"I'm not picky," he says. He only takes a few more bites of his donut before he sets his plate on the coffee table. "I think I ate too many enchiladas."

Clarke smirks. "You got something on your face, genius." She gestures to her own face.

Bellamy swipes at his face but misses pretty much all of the frosting around his lips, so Clarke sets the remnant of her own donut on the coffee table.

"Let me help you with that," she says, leaning across the couch toward him. She wipes the frosting off his face with her thumb, but when she goes to lick the frosting, he grabs her hand and licks it for her. He drags his teeth across the pad of her thumb, and she feels her stomach flutter like a field full of mutant butterflies.

She licks her lips; he notices and smirks at her as he uses his hold on her hand to tug her closer. She loses her balance and falls into him with anoof; he lets out a pained noise at the same time.

"Jesus, why is your elbow so bony?" he wheezes.

"You're such a baby," Clarke tells him. "It was your own damn fault."

"Shut up, Clarke," he says. She snickers and weaves her hands into his hair, kissing him hard until he groans and clutches at her waist. When his thumb accidentally grazes the curve of her breast, she inhales sharply and tries to move closer, but he grunts a little and holds her in place.

"Rude. I was busy," she tells him when he pulls away. He turns his head to kiss her wrist.

"As much as I'd like to help keep you busy, I kind of need to go," he says with a lopsided smile. "Work and shit tomorrow."

Clarke sighs. "Fine."

While he grabs his keys, Clarke darts into the kitchen. When she meets him at the front door, she holds out the tupperware.

"Here. For tomorrow."

He takes it, looking amused. "Packing me a lunch already?"

"Don't be a jerk. Consider it an extension of tonight's thank you."

She means it to be cheeky, but he gets that crease between his brows again.

"I told you that you didn't need to thank me."

Clarke shrugs. "And I told you I don't take orders from you."

The familiar words prompt a reluctant smile.

"Goodnight, Clarke," he tells her.

Clarke gives him a puzzled smile at his oddly formal tone.

"Goodnight, Bellamy," she replies, and with a last, chaste kiss, he leaves.

* * *

Only after he's gone does she realize he never answered her about the flowers.

She puts the dishes in the dishwasher and changes into pajamas, and while she's brushing her teeth, Clarke searches purple tulips on Google. It takes a few reworded searches, but eventually she gets Google to tell her that purple tulips symbolize royalty, and she laughs so hard she almost chokes on her toothpaste.

Her first thought is that he got her flowers that say princess.

Her second thought is that he got her flowers that say anything other than here are some flowers.

What a nerd, she thinks.

* * *

She goes out to the shop the next day around noon, summoned by a text from Raven.

Bellamy's in the office when she gets there, and when she walks in, he gives her the most pitiful, apologetic look. "Clarke," he says slowly. "I think your car is done for."

Clarke knows it had to happen some time, but it still hits her like a freight train. "Oh," is all that comes out of her at first. "Well, that's—that's okay. I'll figure something else out."

"I'm sorry," he says. "I looked, but I don't think anyone's selling the part any more that your car needs."

"It's fine," she says, and it comes out sharper than she meant it to. So that she doesn't do something weird like burst into tears over a damn car, Clarke changes the subject. "Thanks for the flowers, by the way. Did you know purple tulips are for royalty?"

His freckled cheeks flush pink. "What? Really?"

She punches him in the arm. "You did. You fucking nerd, you totally knew."

He laughs nervously. "Okay, you got me. My mom was into the flower thing when I was a kid. She roped me into it."

"Oh, I bet you enjoyed it," Clarke teases. "But seriously, thanks. It was really sweet."

He clears his throat. "I'm, uh, glad you liked them."

Raven walks in from the garage then, wiping her hands on a rag. "He tell you?"

"Yes," Clarke says quickly. "I'll probably ask my mom if I can borrow one of her cars or something. Taking cabs is getting old."

"No time like the present," Raven replies. "Get the hell out of my shop."

"Excuse me?" Clarke says.

"Bellamy, take the rest of the day and give her a ride," Raven commands.

Bellamy opens his mouth, but Raven cuts him off, rolling her eyes.

"You'll still get paid, okay? But if you two don't give me a break from the constant what do they like, I swear I'll murder you both."

"I—"

"Out!"

Clarke takes one last look at Raven's face and books it.

Outside, she looks at Bellamy. "You don't need to take me to my mom's," she says awkwardly. "I'll call a cab, or my mom could probably pick me up."

"I'll take you." His voice doesn't invite argument, and she climbs into his truck when he holds open the door for her.

Clarke texts her mom that she's stopping by, ignores the fact that she's essentially bringing Bellamy home to meet her mother, and tells him the next few turns he needs to make.

"You asked Raven what I liked?" she asks, trying to distract herself.

"I tried." She keeps looking at him expectantly, and he sighs. "She wouldn't talk until I took her battery out of her truck and hid it. Then she mentioned the donuts."

Clarke's jaw drops. "And she didn't fire you?"

"I'm pretty sure she thought I was too pathetic to fire. You asked about me?"

"Yeah. And your sister," she adds, just to see him react. "Neither of them were any help."

Bellamy's eyes widen a little. "You asked Octavia?"

"Well, she's your sister."

His hands grip the steering wheel a little tighter. "You talked to Octavia?"

"Yeah, I talked to her. Am I not allowed to be friends with your sister?"

"No! I mean—yes, yeah, sure. Whatever." He hunches down a little, and it reminds Clarke of some ridiculous cartoon man squashed angrily into a teeny little sedan.

"Okay, seriously, what the hell?"

Except Bellamy doesn't answer, because he has to make a sharp right and parallel park in front of her mother's house. Before he can make a getaway, Clarke's mom strides out of the house. When she sees that Clarke isn't in a taxi, her stride slows just a little to give her more time to assess the situation.

"Hi, Mom," Clarke says, jumping down from the truck.

"Hi, Clarke. Who's this?"

"This is my m—uh, this is Bellamy. He's been trying to fix Dad's car."

"Why do you still drive that thing around?" Abby asks. "It's older than you are."

"Yeah, well, I can't drive it any more. It's broken for good." Clarke slings her bag over her shoulder. "Thanks for the ride," she calls to Bellamy.

"Clarke," Abby scolds. "The boy gave you a ride home. You could at least invite him in. I've got some iced tea, and the Sinclairs gave us some fresh lemons."

Clarke spins around. "I'm sorry, Bellamy. Do you want to come in for some tea with me and my mom?"

He shrugs and turns off the engine. "Sure."

Clarke gapes at Bellamy until he comes around the truck.

"What?" he asks innocently. "You made friends with my family."

She should be more afraid of her mom meeting Bellamy than of Bellamy meeting her mom, but his comment makes her palms sweat.

Abby hums pointedly, and Clarke sighs. "Bellamy, this is my mother. Abigail Griffin."

"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Griffin," he says.

"It's Dr. Griffin, actually, but you can call me Abby," her mom replies. "Come on in, you two."

It feels beyond strange walking into her childhood home with Bellamy right next her. She glances up at him when she feels his hand at the small of her back, but it's apparently a subconscious movement—he's busy taking in the vaulted ceilings and precisely-hung paintings with an inscrutable expression.

"Those are Clarke's," her mom says, noticing his gaze. "She's a wonderful artist."

"I didn't know you painted," Bellamy says to Clarke. He pulls his hand away suddenly, shoving it into the pocket of his jeans.

"I don't," she replies shortly. "Not anymore."

"How do you take your tea, Bellamy?" her mother says, voice a tad too bright. "I'll make us up a tray."

"Uh, plain?" he says uncertainly.

"Alright. Clarke, take him to the sunroom," Abby says. "I'll be there in a minute."

Her mother disappears, and Clarke leads him to the room where she and her parents ate breakfast together every weekend. Even when Clarke was in college, she would come home once a week for her dad's eggs benedict. Since he died, she and her mother have switched to occasional dinners in the formal dining room.

Clarke expects the sight of the familiar wicker furniture and bright cushions to hurt, and it does, a little. But it's also a lot more comforting than she expects, and she gestures at Bellamy to sit next to her at the table.

"Your mom seems nice," he says innocently.

"You—" she starts, glaring, then pauses when she notices the dishes on the table. A couple mugs sit next to a plate of crumbs.

She must be silent for longer than she thinks, staring at the extra mug, because when she looks back at Bellamy, he's got that stupid furrow in his brow. "Clarke?" he asks, and his hand goes to her shoulder.

"I'm fine," she insists, even though she can feel her chest tightening. Her mother is perfectly within her rights to have friends over for coffee. It was probably just Aunt Cece anyway. She picks up the mugs and the plate and takes them into the kitchen.

"Oh, I forgot about those," Abby says when Clarke drops the dishes off in the sink.

"It's okay," Clarke says. "Do you want me to take anything?"

Abby smiles. "I've got it, but thank you."

Clarke goes back into the sunroom, where Bellamy is fidgeting nervously with his greasy shirt. "It's fine, Bellamy," she says. "Your shirt's fine, I promise."

"I didn't know your family was—" He stops and looks around the room.

"Rich? My dad was the chief engineer at a big firm, and my mom's a surgeon, so, yeah. Quit messing with your shirt," she scolds. "You're just getting your hands dirty again."

"Well, I didn't know giving you a ride was going to give me the opportunity to meet your mom, or I'd have dug a cleaner shirt out of my truck."

"It's fine, honestly."

Abby comes in then with the tray, loaded with three glasses of iced tea, a dainty jar of sugar, and a small plate of lemon slices. "So, that old heap finally quit for good?" she asks, and Clarke knows she's just trying to spur conversation, but her chest tightens again anyway.

"I could fix it if I had the part," Bellamy says. "But it's one of those project-car parts you can only find at car shows now."

Abby smiles. "I bet. I'm guessing you work with Raven?"

Clarke sees the little muscle in Bellamy's jaw jump when he says, "She's my boss."

Her mother just nods calmly. "You must be very good at what you do. I know Raven, and she doesn't have patience for someone who doesn't know what he's doing."

The tips of Bellamy's ears turn red. "Thanks, Dr. Griffin."

Her mother laughs. "It's Abby, remember? And I'm amazed you managed to keep it going this long. That thing is ancient; I can't imagine it was easy."

"Yeah, that's why it's dead," Clarke says stiffly. Both Abby and Bellamy look at her.

"I—" Bellamy starts, but Clarke shakes her head, chewing the inside of her cheek.

"Clarke, it's been failing for a long time," her mother says gently.

"I know that," she says, and because a tiny part of her wishes Bellamy would hold her hand, she holds tight to the armrests of her chair.

"It's just a car, honey. You can let it go," Abby says, laying a hand on her arm.

"It's my car, Mom," Clarke says. "You can say let it go all you want, but I'm the one who's been driving it for all these years."

"Okay," her mother replies. "You're right. I'm sorry."

Clarke knows her tone is meant to be soothing, but right now it just sounds condescending. Only the tense set of Bellamy's shoulders and the way he's catching her with careful eyes has her forcing words out of mouth.

"How's Aunt Cece?" she says, and her mother gives her a puzzled smile.

"She's well," Abby replies. "We met up for lunch at Indra's Café on Wednesday."

"Wednesday?" Clarke echoes. Abby nods.

Clarke stands up.

"Excuse me," she manages to get out, and flees to her old bedroom.

* * *

Her mother converted it to a guest bedroom when Clarke moved out, exchanging Clarke's brightly-colored bedding and pop culture posters for a serene, beige-and-slate duvet and paintings of calm beachfronts. Even though there's no posters of half-naked musicians, and no pink-and-orange throw pillows, the room still has her old desk and easel, and it feels like home.

She grabs one of the beige, chevron-patterned throw pillows and hugs it and her knees to her chest. The room is a blurry mess, like her mascara's going to be here pretty quick, and she doesn't want to cry about a stupid car, but she sobs into the pillow anyway.

"Clarke?" Bellamy calls. He knocks on the door, and Clarke hears it slide against the carpet before it latches again.

She doesn't look at Bellamy when he sits next to her, but his weight dips the bed enough that she rolls into him before she can catch herself. He puts an arm around her waist to keep her from falling any further.

"I'm sorry I couldn't fix your dad's car," he says.

Clarke hiccups between sobs. "I don't care about the fucking car," she mumbles. "It was a piece of shit anyway." Clarke sniffles and scrubs at her eyes. "My mom's right. I should let it go." She wants to, but she starts sobbing again instead. The pillow falls to the floor, and Clarke wraps her arms around Bellamy instead.

Bellamy holds her against him and rubs her back with his palm. "Can I ask you something? About your dad?"

"He got sick," Clarke answers. "I was in high school. It was under control for a few years, and then it wasn't. He died right after I graduated college."

"Oh," is all Bellamy says at first, and then, after a silence, "I'm sorry."

The fabric of his shirt is soft against her cheek; he smells like engine grease and sweat and that soap again. "Yeah." Her tears are coming slower now, her breaths easier. The rhythm of his hand between her shoulders helps.

"My mom…" his voice trails off. "Well, there was an accident. It's been just me and Octavia for a long time now."

She swallows. "That's hard."

"Yeah."

His heart is beating slow and steady under her ear, and though she doesn't want to, she finally pulls away. His hands follow her at first as if reluctant to let her go, then he folds them in his lap.

"God," Clarke says. "I'm a mess. I'm sorry." To her eternal embarrassment, there's a damp spot on his shirt where she cried on him, and sooty black stains from her mascara.

Bellamy shrugs, his dark eyes fixed on her. "You're not that much of a mess. I mean, you've got some stuff on your face, but I've seen worse."

He manages to surprise her into a watery laugh, and she braces a hand on the bed so she can lean over him to the nightstand and grab some tissues.

Clarke blows her nose with one, then scrubs at her face with another. The tissue is streaked gray and black when she looks at it.

"Did I get it all?" she asks.

Bellamy considers her, then plucks a clean tissue out of her grasp. He wipes carefully under her eyes while he holds her chin in his hand to keep her still.

"There," he says, and she can feel his breath fan over her face. "You're good, princess."

She closes her eyes and sighs. "Thanks."

A few seconds pass, and then she feels his warm, slightly chapped lips brush a kiss against her cheekbone.

Her eyes close briefly, and she feels her eyelashes kiss the end of his nose. He feels it, too, and he laughs. She likes the way his mouth looks when he laughs like that, so she kisses him, and he shifts so it's easier to kiss her. His hand is warm on her hip and on her neck, and she leans into him until he breaks away from her and drops one more quick kiss on her forehead. "Your mom's still waiting in the sunroom," he says. "You good?"

Clarke nods, and Bellamy picks up the throw pillow and puts it back on the bed so the pillows look symmetrical again. Clarke straightens the duvet, and then follows Bellamy back out to the sunroom.

She gives her mom a nod to let her know everything's peachy, and Abby goes back to questioning Bellamy. He tries to be suave and smooth, but he trips over his words anyway. By the time they're done with tea, he looks like he's about to fall over. Clarke nudges his foot encouragingly.

"Mom, I think we're gonna go, but thanks for the tea."

"Sure. Oh, let me get you the keys to the Subaru." Abby takes the tray with the empty glasses back into the kitchen.

Clarke groans quietly the second her mom is gone. "I hate the Subaru."

Bellamy laughs. "Why?"

"I just do. It's all big and clunky and I can never park anywhere because I can't see."

He nudges her foot. "It's not the Subaru's fault you're short, princess."

Clarke glares. "It's not because I'm short. It's because the Subaru is a freaking barge with zero maneuverability."

"You could always find something else to drive. One of those little tiny smart cars, maybe," he teases. "You could probably park one of those."

"I hate you," she says.

He grins at her. "No, you don't."

She pauses and looks at him. "Yeah, okay. I don't."

Bellamy blinks at her, then his grin softens into a tiny smile she can just picture on him as a little boy.

"Here you go, Clarke," her mother says, entering the sunroom. She drops a set of keys into Clarke's hand. "Use it as long as you need. It doesn't get driven enough anyway."

Clarke thanks her mom and hugs her goodbye, and tries not to laugh when Abby ignores his protests about his greasy shirt and pulls a wide-eyed Bellamy into a hug too.

Her mother had moved the Subaru out of the garage when she'd gone to get Clarke the keys, and the bulky car is parked on the street behind Bellamy's pickup.

Clarke sighs at the sight of it.

"At least you won't break down out on Old 101 anymore, right?" Bellamy says, pulling open the driver door for her.

"Yay," she says flatly.

She climbs in and grimaces; she's going to be peeling her thighs off the "leather" seats every time she moves.

"Gross," she mutters, though she does perk up a little at the sight of the aux cord. Her own car had a radio that got about three stations, and a tape player—that was it.

"Hey," Bellamy says, and she glances up at him, framed in the still-open door. "Come over."

"What?"

He lifts and drops a shoulder. "Octavia's off. We were going to do a movie night. You can come over, if you want. Since you two are apparently friends," he adds in a pained voice.

It sounds better than sitting in her apartment and trying not to cry over her car again.

"What movie are you guys watching?" Clarke asks.

The first thing he says, he mumbles, and she has to ask him to repeat it. "The Princess Bride," he says. "It's Octavia's turn to pick the movie."

"Sounds like fun." Clarke sticks the key in the ignition. "I'll follow you?"

Bellamy nods. "Sure thing, princess."

While she waits for Bellamy to get in his truck, Clarke plugs the aux cord into her phone and starts up the playlist she uses for cleaning, with all her favorite mop-serenading songs. She follows him through town, singing at the top of her lungs, and when they're stopped at that extra-long red light at Weatherton and Main, she turns the music up even louder and has a nice, private red-light dance party. It's not until she checks the light—still red—that she sees Bellamy turned around in his seat.

Their eyes meet for a long second. Clarke freezes, and Bellamy turns back around, and then the light is green and she's following him into a tiny, gateless apartment complex and he's pointing out the window to a row of four empty spaces far away from other cars, leaving a ridiculous amount of space for her to park. Rude, she thinks, but she takes it back after she has to back out and pull in again three times just to fit the Subaru in one space.

She sings the last line of the song that's playing before she shuts the car off and hops out. Bellamy's leaning against the end of the Subaru, a dumbass grin on his face. "How's the sound system?"

"It works," she says. "I still hate this thing, though."

"Yeah, you weren't kidding about parking. Maybe you should look for one of those," he says, nodding to the lime-green Fiat two spaces away from the Subaru. "You could probably park that."

"That is the ugliest thing I have ever seen," Clarke says flatly.

He laughs and leads her up to his door. As he unlocks it, he clears his throat and glances back at her. "It's not, uh, much."

Clarke rolls her eyes. "As long as it's got a bathroom, I really don't care."

He stares at her and she gestures at him to hurry up. "Come on, I've got to go!"

"Oh. Oh!" Clarke wants to laugh at how flustered he gets, but he finally lets her into his apartment.

"To the right, middle door," he tells her awkwardly, and she tosses her purse onto the couch before she beelines for the bathroom.

She wasn't lying; after all that tea she does have to pee, but that doesn't mean she doesn't snoop a little after she takes care of business. The bathroom is clean, but not freakishly so, and she can see that the shower is filled with lots of girly name brand stuff. There are just a couple generic bottles that are probably the source of that manly soap smell always clinging to Bellamy.

When she leaves the bathroom, Octavia's in the kitchen with Bellamy. He eyes them for a second before he mutters something about cleaning up and slips off.

"Hey!" his sister greets Clarke. She's in the middle of shoving a frozen pizza into the oven; behind her on the counter is a massive pile of different types of candy.

"Hi," Clarke says. "Your brother said you picked out The Princess Bride for tonight?"

"Is that what he said?" Octavia looks incredibly amused. "Well, it's what's on the schedule. Bell's always had a thing for princesses."

Clarke doesn't know what to say to that, but Octavia's already moved on. "So. Taking him to meet the parents already?"

"Just my mom," Clarke says. "My car is officially unfixable, so I'm borrowing my mom's SUV."

"Sorry about your car."

"It's okay. It's older than I am, so it had to go out eventually, right?"

Octavia shrugs. "Sure. Still sucks, though. Do you want some M&M's?" She dumps an entire bag of the things into a bowl and sets it on the counter in front of Clarke.

Clarke doesn't really think she needs comfort food, but now that the little candies are sitting in front of her, she snacks on them while Octavia dumps the other candy into other bowls. She feels a little useless just standing around, though, so after a couple dozen M&M's, Clarke picks up the bowls of candy and lines them up on the coffee table in front of the couch.

Octavia runs a finger along the DVDs on one of the bookshelves in the living room. Unlike the bookshelf next to it, the one with the DVD shelf is neat and tidy, and the books above and below the DVDs are organized alphabetically by author. On the other bookshelf, books and DVDs were stacked ten different ways and in no way organized.

"Bet you can guess which one's my brother's stuff," Octavia says when she sees Clarke scanning the neatly organized books.

"I'm going to guess it's this one with all the biographies of dead guys," she says, reading the back of a book about Alexander the Great. "I didn't know he was so into history."

"He's a humongous nerd," Octavia says. "Don't ever watch Troy with him. And whatever you do, don't mention the Library of Alexandria if you value your sanity."

"Who's talking about the Library of Alexandria?" Bellamy calls.

"Hercules save us all," Octavia mutters. "So much for the movie."

Glancing at Octavia's resigned face, Clarke says hastily, "Me. Just, you know, thousands of years and I'm still pissed."

He eyes her when he emerges into the living room, clad in a fresh but worn-looking t-shirt and a pair of sweats. She tries to look earnest, and after a moment he grunts in agreement.

Where he can't see, Octavia mimes wiping sweat off her brow in relief, and Clarke doesn't hide her smile in time.

"What?" he asks.

"Nothing," Clarke says. "Just that you look comfy."

"Oh." He glances at himself, then at her own clothes. "You want something else to wear?"

Clarke pauses. "Yeah, actually, that sounds great. This skirt makes my—" she cuts herself off, and her cheeks heat. "Uh, just, sure."

"My yoga pants and stuff are in my second drawer, Bell," Octavia says, but Bellamy shakes his head as he gestures for Clarke to follow him.

"I've got it," he replies, and pushes open the door on the left.

Clarke follows him in, looking around curiously. It's small, small enough that she has to move so he can close the door enough to be able to pull open his dresser drawers.

And it's definitely his room, his dresser. It's tidy, though his clothes from that day spill over the edge of the hamper that's wedged between the wall and his nightstand.

"Here," he says, handing her a soft burgundy t-shirt and sweatpants she knows are going to be way too long on her.

"Thanks," she says, but he just looks at her. "Should I...change in the bathroom? Or here?"

"Huh? Oh, whatever. Just let me, uh—" Bellamy takes her face in his hands and kisses her, nice and slow.

"Stop making out so we can start the damn movie!" Octavia yells from the living room.

Bellamy sighs dramatically. "I'll let you change," he says, and shuts the door on his way out. Clarke changes into the t-shirt and sweats, and has to roll up the waistband and the ankles to keep from tripping on them. The t-shirt is way too big, too; Clarke thinks it's adorable that he still has his Tesla High School math club shirt.

She heads back into the living room where she moves her purse off the couch, piling it with her folded clothes and shoes next to the door. Octavia's impatiently stabbing the skip button on the remote, trying desperately to get to the menu so she can start the movie. Bellamy's rearranging the snacks so his favorites are closer.

"Is there, like, assigned seating here, or is it a free-for-all?" Clarke asks.

Before Bellamy can answer, Octavia bursts out laughing behind Clarke. "Bell, seriously?"

"What?" Bellamy asks, at the same time that Clarke turns to give Octavia a look of utter confusion. "Oh," is all he says.

"'Oh' what?" Clarke asks Bellamy. "Did I put the shirt on backwards?"

Octavia's shaking her head, still doubled over laughing. The DVD menu finally appears, but Octavia isn't paying attention to that any more.

"Octavia," Bellamy complains. "Just play the goddamn movie."

Octavia takes a few deep breaths in between giggles, and when she's composed herself, she gives her brother a slight bow and says, "As you wish."

Clarke sits on the couch warily, expecting a fart balloon or a pinecone or something, but nothing happens, except that Bellamy continues to scowl at the coffee table. "Seriously," Clarke says. "Are my pants on backward or something?"

"No, you're fine," Bellamy mutters. "Octavia's just being weird. Little sister stuff."

Octavia snorts. "Right. Whatever you want to tell yourself to feel better, big brother."

Clarke makes herself comfortable, leaning against the arm of the couch. Octavia takes the other end, leaving Bellamy to sit in the middle.

"I hate the middle," he grumbles.

"I asked about seats," Clarke says. "You snooze, you lose."

He flicks her closest knee, but he's too gentle and it tickles, making Clarke yelp.

"Gross," Octavia comments. "I'm literally right here, guys."

Bellamy shushs her, pointing at the television.

They get through a few scenes before they break for pizza and beer; Clarke catches Bellamy mumbling the words to Inigo Montoya's speech through a mouthful of cheese and pepperoni.

"You're a dork," she tells him. "Like, a really huge dork."

"What she said," Octavia says absently, eyes glued to the screen.

"I regret ever letting you two speak to each other," he says once he's finished his bite. Clarke smirks at him and twists so she can stretch out her legs across his lap.

He rolls his eyes, but when he finishes his food and puts his plate on the coffee table, he rests his hands on her calves.

* * *

By the time the movie ends, she's nearly asleep.

"I open tomorrow morning," Octavia groans, and rolls off the couch to land belly-down on the floor. "Night," she says, voice muffled in the carpet.

"Night," Clarke replies sleepily, and watches in mild interest as Octavia literally crawls the short distance to her bedroom. Once her door is shut, Bellamy lifts Clarke's legs. After standing and stretching for a minute, he crouches down so he's face to face with her.

"Hey, princess."

"Hey." She smiles tiredly at him. "Is this a kissing book?"

He considers her. "Nah. More a sleeping book."

She raises an eyebrow, and he huffs. "You're too loopy to drive home, and I drank. You can have my bed."

"You don't need to do that. This couch is real comfy," she says, slurring a little. She leans toward him. "You're pretty comfy, too."

"Clarke," he groans. "Just take the damn bed." He pushes her away from him, toward his room. "I'm going to sleep right here, and you're going to sleep in there, and you can go home in the morning."

He's not the only one who had a drink, though, and hers was later in the movie than his, right around the part with Miracle Max. "No way. I'm not going to sleep in there if you won't. It's your bed."

Bellamy narrows his eyes at her.

"Either you sleep in the bed and I sleep on the couch, or you sleep in the bed and I sleep in the bed," she explains.

Bellamy rubs his face. "Okay, fine. Have it your way, princess." He gets up, yawning, and shuffles into his room. "But absolutely no funny business."

Clarke follows him and wraps her arms around him from behind. "Are you sure? I'm told I can be very fun."

His hands rest on her arms, and he pries her off of him. She thinks he's going to do that thing he does where he keeps her at arm's length, but he pulls her in front of him instead. "How fun?" he asks, staring at her intently.

The light from the still-open bedroom door casts shadows across his face, and where there aren't shadows, Clarke can make out each freckle that covers the lines of his face. Maybe it's the beer, or the giddy tiredness, but he's a work of art, honestly, and it's a crime against the universe to let art like that go unexamined. She runs a thumb over his well-defined cheekbone and then kisses his cheek.

"I'm fun," she insists again.

"I believe you," he says hoarsely, and takes her waist in his hands as he kisses her. His fingers hold tight, the pressure almost bruising, but it feels pretty damn perfect as she opens her mouth on a sigh.

But then the sigh turns into a jaw-cracking yawn, one so big it actually hurts, and Bellamy starts laughing at her.

"You're fun, you're fun," he hastily assures her when he sees her scowl. "I just think you'll have to save the rest of your fun for later."

Her body is humming pleasantly, and she really wants to keep right on having fun, but—

"You do look a little blurry," she concedes. He kisses her brow, and she can tell he's still smiling.

He leads her into the bathroom and finds her an extra toothbrush, then a washcloth when she complains about her makeup. Once her face is scrubbed and their teeth are brushed, she kicks him out so she can pee.

By the time she wanders back into his bedroom and closes the door, Bellamy's already lying in bed. His feet hang off the full-sized mattress a good six inches, and Clarke tries to keep her laughter quiet, mindful of Octavia trying to sleep.

"Why on earth do you have such a small bed?"

He grimaces at her. "It was free, and I usually sleep diagonal, so I fit just fine."

"You're dumb," Clarke tells him, slipping under the covers. "You can still sleep diagonal, I take up like two inches of space."

"You're going to fall off the edge," he tells her.

She reaches back, pulls his arm across her. "Don't let me," she orders sleepily. "Farm boy."

As Clarke falls asleep, she can hear the smile in his voice. "As you wish, princess."

* * *

When Clarke wakes up, Bellamy's already awake and up, and she can hear him in the kitchen through the crack in the door. She yawns and stretches, and then gets out of bed and shuffles groggily into the kitchen.

"You want coffee?" Bellamy asks before her sleep-addled brain can form words.

She nods and slides onto a barstool. "Thanks for letting me stay last night," she says. "I probably could have made it home, but I was super tired."

"I could tell," he says, sliding a mug of steaming coffee across the counter to her, along with the sugar jar and a bottle of french vanilla creamer. "I don't know what you eat for breakfast, but I can make something if you want."

"There's still pizza left, isn't there?"

Bellamy arches an eyebrow. "It's Sunday morning. Leftover pizza is definitely not Sunday brunch food."

"It's not even ten yet," Clarke says. "It's not time for brunch yet."

"Who are you, the brunch police?"

"Mm," she says, sipping at her coffee. "I might be. This is really good coffee, though, so you just might get off with a warning."

"Look, what do you want for breakfast? Your options are pancakes, potatoes, and eggs. Or I guess oatmeal, but that's kind of cheating."

"What if I want pizza?"

"You can't have pizza for Sunday breakfast," Bellamy says.

"Says who?"

"Look, you just can't have leftover pizza, okay? I didn't make the rule, but it's stood in my house for generations and I'm not going to change it now. Besides, I'm pretty sure O took the leftovers for lunch."

He looks absolutely appalled and affronted at the thought of having leftovers for breakfast, so Clarke cradles her coffee closer and gives in. "Well, if you're going to insist on making something, surprise me."

He rolls his eyes and drags a bag of pancake mix out of the pantry, then rinses a clamshell of strawberries and sets it on the counter.

"Give me a knife and a bowl," Clarke says. "I'll slice them."

Bellamy gives her a look. "Anyone ever tell you you're bossy in the morning?"

She grins.

While she preps the berries, he bakes bacon, scrambles eggs, and flips pancakes. All the different food is kind of overkill to her, but she's hungry and Bellamy seems like a man on a mission, so she keeps quiet.

When breakfast's ready, Bellamy sets plates in front of both of them.

"You made me a shape," she says. Her pancake has some blobby triangles attached to the top of the sphere like a crown, and it has strawberry eyes and a bacon mouth. On each side of the pancake are little piles of eggs.

"The scrambled eggs are your hair," he says, and Clarke laughs so hard she nearly falls off her stool.

"Oh my god," she wheezes. "You made a pancake-me? You want me to eat me?"

He shrugs. "I could eat you instead."

Red starts to creep up his neck as she stares at him. "I mean, we can trade. Trade plates," he clarifies. "We—fuck."

Clarke takes pity on him. "Sit down and eat your pancakes, Bellamy."

They eat quietly, his knee nudging hers, and she has to admit that pancake-Clarke tastes delicious.

"You always been this good a cook?" she asks.

"Breakfast food is easy," he replies. "It's pretty much all O and I ate for a year."

She looks at him, questioning, and he gives her a half-smile. "I didn't exactly pay a lot of attention to my mom's recipes, so when she died I had to keep us fed somehow."

"Oh." Clarke lifts a forkful of eggs. "It's good, though."

"Well, it's definitely gotten better. I used to burn all the pancakes, and it took six months for me to figure out how to cook bacon so it was edible."

"Still, add waffles and omelettes to your cookbook and you're a regular breakfast chef."

"And risk burning eighty batches of waffles and a few dozen omelettes? Nah. I'd rather just cook the same five things forever."

Clarke rolls her eyes. "Have it your way. But if you're going to make pancake faces, I might have to keep you around."

"If you're going to keep me around, I might make more pancake faces. You know, if you want. To keep me around, I mean."

"I might," she teases. "Are you going to give me shit for driving a ten-ton freight barge?"

Bellamy shrugs. "I'll quit giving you shit about driving a ten-ton freight barge when you quit driving a ten-ton freight barge." He starts cutting up his short stack of pancakes. "Just don't get a Fiat. Those things are hell to work on."

"I'm not going to get a Fiat," Clarke says. "I want a good car that's going to last a while. You know, something I can pass down to my sixteen-year-old for her first car that maybe won't break down quite so much as my first car did."

"To be fair, your dad's car was a crappy car to begin with. I mean, a Fiesta? Really?"

"Okay, yeah. So I guess I won't start off with something that's already terrible. Any ideas?"

He stabs a few pieces of pancake. "Depends on what you want."

"I want a car. I want to be able to park it. I want it to run forever. And I want it to be red."

"Little red cars get noticed by the cops," he says.

"So? I'm an excellent driver."

"Sure you are," he says.

"What? It's not like my car was always in the shop because I was wrecking it. Once I get a new car, you'll probably only see me for oil changes and maintenance stuff."

Bellamy stands abruptly, grabbing their plates even though she still had a couple bites left.

"Hey," she says. He ignores her as he scrapes the dishes and loads them in the dishwasher.

Exasperated, she hops down and corners him by the fridge.

"Hey," she repeats. "Can you stop taking everything I say the wrong way?"

"I didn't take it any way," he mutters, glaring at the floor. "Can you move?"

"No. Not until you acknowledge that you're being a big baby, and I obviously didn't mean I'd never see you. I just wouldn't see you in the shop all the time."

He glances up through his lashes. "Yeah?"

"Yes!" she laughs. "God, you're a drama queen."

Without warning, he grabs her, hoisting her onto his shoulder.

As she shrieks, he says, "Drama king, thanks."

When he sets her down in his bedroom, he's looking at her with soft eyes.

"There's time for you to go look at cars," he says. "If you really hate that Subaru that much."

Clarke feels a pang at the thought of actually buying a new car—it feels much more final than borrowing one.

But…

She really fucking hates that Subaru.

"Yeah, okay. Will you go with me?"

He snorts. "Like I'd let you go alone. Car salesmen are sleaze."

"Salespeople," she corrects primly, and escapes to get dressed.

Once freshened up, she finally notices—in bright gold letters, BLAKE is written across the back of the shirt she's been wearing since last night.

* * *

She lets Bellamy drive, because he knows cars and she hates driving the Subaru. He takes her first to Wallace Motors, which he claims has been the best place in the whole city to buy a new car for decades. Plus, he says, old man Wallace is as nice and fair as a salesman can be.

The cars are lined up, shiny and pristine, and Clarke takes her sweet time looking at all the cute little sedans, walking up and down the rows of cars and peering in the windows. She looks especially intently at the red ones, and ignores all of Bellamy's little noises, until he starts groaning audibly while she's checking out the interior of a four-door.

"What?" she asks.

"Well, it's just that you can't tell anything about a car from looking at the outside. Not on a car lot, anyway. They all look brand new. Also, that one's a Subaru." He points to the symbol on the nose of the car and Clarke backs away from it.

"Fine, O Wise Car Man. Tell me how to summon the perfect car."

Bellamy snorts. "I don't think you can summon one, but you can probably find one that will work. Just, you know, not that one. I'm pretty secure in my job already."

Clarke frowns. "What?"

He shakes his head and huffs. "Never mind. Just trying to make a joke."

She thinks about it for a second. "Oh. Oh! Ha." She gives him a deadpan look. "Funny."

He shrugs and starts toward the office. "I try."

The inside of the office smells like hand sanitizer, and not the nice cherry stuff Clarke likes. The fluorescent lights do terrible things to everything in the room, especially the pale young man in the gray suit talking to another potential customer.

When he spots Clarke and Bellamy, he says something to the elderly lady, and leaves her looking puzzled while he beelines for them.

"Welcome to Wallace Motors. I'm Cage," the salesman greets them, and offers his hand to shake. His hand is just a bit too cool, his grip a bit too long for Clarke, but she tries to brush it off.

She does notice when he doesn't offer Bellamy his hand at all, though, and it's clear Bellamy does too when he asks, "Where's Dante?"

Cage gives them a thin-lipped smile. "Dad's trying out semi-retirement. He only comes in on Tuesdays and Thursdays now. I'm certain I can help you out in any way you need," he adds, looking directly at Clarke. His hand touches her waist, fingers leaving the worst kind of goosebumps as they slide over her blouse, and she jerks away.

"Excuse you," she says sharply, reaching for Bellamy. His fingers lace with hers, grasp reassuringly tight.

"I beg your pardon," Cage says, and Clarke resists the urge to curl her lip when he smiles again. It's probably meant to seem charming, but it's just giving Clarke the willies. "I just wanted to show you to a seat, talk with you about what you're looking for."

Bellamy squeezes her hand; his face is questioning when she glances at him, though that little jaw muscle is jumping. She squeezes back with a little shake of her head.

"I'd rather not," she says firmly. "Besides, you've got another customer already waiting."

"It's really no trouble," he insists, and this time Clarke's the one to squeeze, and Bellamy to brush a reassuring thumb over hers.

"She said no," Bellamy growls. Cage looks a little peeved but also a little frightened. "Your customer service skills could use some work, asshole."

They can't leave quickly enough for Clarke, who feels Cage's pervy leer all the way out to the Subaru. As Bellamy starts the car, Clarke is pleased to notice the elderly lady leaving the office, her purse tucked tightly under one arm and a look of disgust on her face.

"Good," Bellamy mutters as they drive away. "I can't believe that creep took over this place. If it doesn't go out of business in the next few years, I'll be appalled."

"I'm appalled now," Clarke replies. "Where else is there around here?"

Bellamy makes a right turn. "There's another lot down this. Gus isn't bad, for a car salesman."

"As long as he doesn't try to grope me," Clarke says. "I don't care how nice the bucket seats are."

Bellamy laughs. "You do have a pretty nice seat, princess."

Clarke gives him a deadpan look and in an instant, Bellamy is spluttering and stammering apologies, until Clarke can't keep a straight face anymore, and she starts laughing, too. "Yours isn't bad, either."

Bellamy pulls into a car lot decorated with brightly-colored balloons and a healthy amount of hedgerow around the perimeter of the lot. "Here we are," he says, parking the Subaru in front of the office. "Let's see if we can find your highness a reliable carriage."

Gus turns out to be Cage's polar opposite. He's polite, respectful, and genuinely funny—and when Bellamy makes a comment about Cage, a look of disgust crosses his face for a moment. "A disgrace to the profession," Gus comments before quickly changing the subject to desired car features.

The first car Gus shows them is a cute little orange four-door sedan with a back-up camera, hybrid engine, and seat warmers. "Does the warranty cover turning back into a pumpkin?" Clarke mutters to Bellamy.

"Sure," Bellamy replies. "It's called the Princess Clause."

The car is nice, but not quite what she wants; Gus can obviously tell, and quickly moves along to the next one. It's a little bigger, blue, and has a Bose sound system.

"What do you think? Worthy of a red light dance party?" Bellamy teases. She wrinkles her nose.

"I guess. But I liked the smaller ones."

The third car, a brand new little red Toyota, is the perfect fit.

"Back-up camera with projected path, excellent gas mileage for a non-hybrid, great sound system for its class," Gus pitches. "Only nine miles on the odometer."

"I want to drive it," Clarke announces. Gus takes the passenger seat—dealership policy— and Bellamy folds himself into the backseat, which is large for the size of the car but small for someone of his height. But he doesn't complain as Clarke gleefully drives around; instead he keeps up a running commentary about how the car handles, the different features he likes, what he knows about the engine.

When they get back to the lot, Clarke's only a little distracted from how much she likes the car by the way Bellamy stretches when he gets out, revealing a stripe of tan skin as his shirt rides up.

Clarke reaches out, tugs the shirt down, grins as he jolts when her fingers brush his spine.

"I like it," she says when he frowns at her. "Thoughts?"

"It's probably one of the longest-lasting cars on the planet," he says. "Of course I like it. I'm not going to be fixing it every other day."

She bites her lip as Gus waits patiently. "Is it too quick to make a decision?"

Bellamy smiles when she looks at him. "I'd say if anyone knows her own mind, you do, princess."

"I want this one," Clarke says with a nod. She looks at Gus. "I'll take it."

She expects to sign a few papers and take the keys and go, but she doesn't get out of the office for hours. By the time Clarke's getting in the driver's seat again, her stomach is rumbling loudly, despite her big breakfast.

They stop off at Clarke's favorite burrito joint for a much-belated lunch, and then head to Clarke's place. Bellamy parks the Subaru in the guest parking, and Clarke pulls her shiny new car into her covered parking space. She lets the song on the radio play out—she's gonna get that Bluetooth thing set up first thing tomorrow—and then gets out of the car. Bellamy's leaning up against the pillar one parking space away, smirking.

"Hey, thanks for helping me with the car thing," she says, ignoring the amusement all over his face. "Gus was right about the speakers."

He shoves off the pillar and waltzes toward her. "Yeah, I saw that dance party you were having back there at that long red light."

Clarke shrugs. "It was a red light. A dance party was mandatory. I don't make the rules."

Bellamy shakes his head. "You and your dance parties."

Clarke means to make fun of him for something, but before she can think of anything to make fun of him for, he backs her up against her driver's side door and kisses her soundly. The new car is a little taller than her dad's old jalopy was, and the edges are more rounded, so there isn't a metal corner grinding into her neck. "It's a nice car," she says into his mouth.

"Yeah, it's good."

"Do you want to test out the back seat?"

Bellamy shrugs. "Whatever the hell you want, princess."

But he doesn't move to let her up from the car, and Clarke takes the opportunity to kiss the little dimple in the center of his chin.

When she pulls back, he's looking at her kind of funny, as if he's thinking really hard about something.

"What? Is there guacamole on my face or something?" she asks when he doesn't stop looking.

"No, I—" Bellamy shakes his head, slides his hands into her hair, and kisses her until she's dizzy.

She hums, eyes heavy-lidded, when he finally pulls away. "On second thought, I'm not sure the backseat is the best venue at the moment."

His thumb rubs little circles where her jaw meets her ear. "Yeah?"

Clarke nods, lets her hands slide up and down his back in firm strokes. "Yeah. I think you should walk me to my door." She raises a brow, though her heart's pounding.

He does let her up at that, and he offers his hand almost shyly for her to take. They take the stairs to her door, and Clarke clicks her new keyfob, grinning at Bellamy when her car chirps cheerfully.

The blinds in the next door window rustle. "Hi, Mrs. Kane!" Clarke calls loudly, then drags Bellamy into her apartment and locks the door behind them.

"Think we shocked her?" Bellamy asked, hands going to her hips as she drops her things and wraps her arms around his neck.

Clarke snickers. "Probably not. Bet we made her day, actually." She's probably already on the phone with Clarke's mom, but Clarke doesn't really care.

"Is this a better venue for what you had in mind, princess?"

Clarke sucks his bottom lip into her mouth until he groans and his hands clutch her desperately. "Not quite."

And with that, she leads him into her bedroom.

* * *

They scrounge for dinner in Clarke's kitchen, which is mostly leftovers and ramen noodles, and manage to come up with enough still-edible food to call it a meal. "Wasn't my best effort," Bellamy jokes while he rinses the dishes, "but it also wasn't breakfast food."

"Well, it's not like you had much to work with." Clarke shrugs. "Kinda my fault, you know; I haven't been grocery shopping in a while."

Bellamy elbows her lightly. "It's okay, princess." He drops a kiss on her forehead on his way to wipe his hands dry. "Can I have a ride home in your fancy new carriage, or shall I saddle my horse?"

Clarke sighs. "I'll get my keys."

He promises to help her get the Subaru back to her mom's, gives her a lengthy good-night kiss, and makes her promise to text him when she gets home. When she gets home, she has a text from Octavia which contains nothing but a winky face.

Oh, shut up, she replies on her way to her room. She changes into the t-shirt that's in her purse, and gets a text from Bellamy while she's brushing her teeth.

Where'd you put my shirt this morning? he asks. I can't find it.

Clarke snaps a picture of herself, toothbrush and all; the counter is just low enough to show a few inches of her bare leg. This one? she comments.

Yeah, that one.

I guess you'll just have to come get it off me some time.

Bellamy's next message takes a bit longer. No, I think you can keep it.

She accidentally sprays toothpaste on the bathroom mirror when she laughs, and after she cleans it up, there's another text waiting for her.

On second thought, can I come get it back tomorrow? I like that shirt.

You'll have to work for it. I like this shirt too.

I don't have a problem with that. Be there at six.

* * *

The next day, her phone rings the moment her lunch hour starts, and she's not surprised to see her mother's number on the screen.

"So," Abby says immediately. "You want to tell me why Vera called me about your visitor yesterday?"

Clarke slurps the soup she'd picked up from the corner store on her way to work. "You want to finally tell me why you're BFFs with Mrs. Kane?"

She's quiet for a minute. "I'm dating her son."

"I'm dating Bellamy Blake," Clarke counters. The news that her mother's dating is good, she thinks. God knows Clarke acted like a total basket-case over those extra breakfast dishes, but now she's had time to process the idea. She's matured. Or whatever.

"Well. Good," her mother says finally. "I liked him."

Clarke smiles into her soup. "Yeah, he's not so bad."

They talk a little bit about Marcus Kane, and she tells Abby that she'll be dropping off the Subaru that night.

"Already?"

"I really, really hate it. Plus I got a new car."

* * *

When Bellamy shows up, she greets him with a kiss and he greets her with a bag of Chinese takeout.

"Jade Garden?" Clarke says, delighted. "That's my favorite."

"Spicy cashew chicken," he says, waving the bag in her face.

She starts to grin, then narrows her eyes. "How did you know?"

"Raven. She's mad at you, by the way. Something about girl talk. Girl code? I don't know."

Clarke groans. "You gave it up already?"

He frowns. "Was it a secret?"

"Uh, no, considering I told my mom and we're going over to drop off the Subaru tonight."

Bellamy looks absurdly pleased.

"Have you told Octavia?"

"Yeah. She looked at me like I was the last person on earth to figure it out."

Clarke laughs. "Sounds like Octavia." She shoves a mess of art supplies to one side of the table and Bellamy distributes the takeout boxes and some chopsticks. Clarke takes a fork instead; despite all her artist's dexterity, she's embarrassingly bad at using foreign utensils. "Oh, man, I love spicy cashew chicken," Clarke says, digging into the box of Chinese food.

"I'll keep that in mind."

Clarke listens to Bellamy talk about work, and tells him about her new project, and then Clarke gives Bellamy the keys to the Subaru. "Don't run anybody over on your way there," she teases.

"I won't wreck your mom's car," he tells her.

"It's not my mom's car I'd be worried about."

Bellamy snorts. "Right. I'll see you there, princess."

He drives behind her the whole way, and she can see him grinning when they're at that long red light and she's having a dance party. When they get to her mom's, someone else is parked in the Subaru's usual spot, so Bellamy parks on the street instead.

Clarke knocks loudly on the door, and she hears a man's voice shout from somewhere in the house as her mom opens the door. "Hi, Clarke. Come on in. You're just in time for dessert."

Clarke can smell something delicious, and while she's busy taking off her shoes, Marcus Kane comes in, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel. He flashes a grin at Abby. "Good thing you heard the timer," he said. "Any longer and the crust would have burned. Good to see you, Clarke. Are you staying for dessert? I made pie."

"I'd love some pie. Bellamy?"

Bellamy nods. "Pie sounds great. I'm Bellamy Blake, by the way."

"Marcus Kane. Pleasure to meet you," he replies as they head into the kitchen. Clarke starts getting out plates while Marcus slices the pie and Abby grabs a tray. Marcus asks Bellamy how he and Clarke met, and Clarke's entertained by how hard Bellamy tries to make their first meeting sound more…pleasant than it actually was.

"To the sunroom?" Abby asks when the dessert tray is ready, but she's talking to Clarke. She knows she could say no and nobody would mind. She doesn't have to do this right now, sit with her mother and her mother's new man where she used to sit with her father.

Then Bellamy's hand finds hers, squeezes gently, and Clarke smiles, small but genuine. "Yeah. Sounds nice."

* * *

"So," Bellamy says, comically casual, when she's driving them back. "What are you doing tonight?"

She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. "You, hopefully."

There's a brief pause before he snorts, and she can see a grin settle on his face as he looks out the window.

After he steals her keys and throws her over his shoulder to carry her, shrieking with laughter, into her apartment, Clarke's hopes are fulfilled twice over—once in the bedroom, and again in the shower when they're supposed to be getting ready for bed.

Clarke's bed is bigger than Bellamy's, so he doesn't need to lie diagonally, but that doesn't stop Clarke from wriggling up against him until he drapes a heavy arm across her waist.

It's been a long time since Clarke's liked anybody enough to want to them to share her bed, and falling asleep with Bellamy when they're both sober is a little strange. But it's good.

As she falls asleep, her last thought is that she thinks she could get used to it.

* * *

Clarke finds Octavia—or, more accurately, is accosted by Octavia—at the coffee shop the next morning, all waggly eyebrows and knowing smirk.

"So, Clarke, what did you do last night?"

"You really want to know?"

Octavia laughs. "No, not really. Next time, though, do me a favor and text me. You're not the only one who likes having boys over."

Clarke glances at the tall, handsome barista at the other end of the counter. "Sure. I'll see you later, yeah? I gotta get to work."

"Right. I should, too, I guess." Octavia pushes a hot coffee across the counter and waves as Clarke walks out the door.

Raven blows up her phone the entire time she's at work, and Clarke knows it's a slow day at the shop when she gets seven text messages from Bellamy consisting mostly of heart emoticons. On her lunch, Clarke promises Raven a proper dish when they get together on Thursday, and teases Bellamy about his excessive use of emoticons.

The geek squad comes in to fix her work computer—it's been acting up for a week—and when Kyle's phone chimes a line from a song that's not quite workplace-appropriate, Monty grins as his partner turns bright red. "I swear I put it on vibrate," Kyle mumbles.

"Right. Doesn't she know you're at work?" Monty asks.

Kyle shrugs. "Slow day at the shop, I guess."

Clarke laughs from the next cubicle, where she's working on a few pencil sketches. "You too?"

Kyle nods and sticks his head back under the desk to fiddle with some wires.

"Don't mind him," Monty jokes. "He's just shy because his girlfriend's like fifty times tougher than he is."

"Hey! That's not true! Just 'cause she fixes cars and I fix precision electronics..."

"Don't feel bad. Raven's tougher than all of us."

* * *

A fact she proves all too well when she corners Clarke after work on Thursday, demanding details, damn it! Clarke tries to walk the line between legitimate girl talk and keeping quiet the parts Bellamy wouldn't enjoy his boss knowing.

Raven stares at her, unimpressed. "He spent Monday night and you cuddled."

"I was in my underwear," Clarke offers weakly. "He's like a furnace."

"And after?" Raven prompts.

"And…" Clarke shrugs. "He felt bad about ditching Octavia again, so we had another movie night with her. And last night he was busy with some work thing, so he didn't come over."

Raven's eyebrows skyrocket, and Clarke frowns. "What?"

"Work, huh?"

"Yes," Clarke says slowly. "Why?"

Raven shrugs, all innocence. "Just glad I'm employing a hard worker."

"Great," she replies dryly.

A moment later—"So how were the orgasms?"

"Raven!"

* * *

Bellamy texts her the next morning; in spite of his tendency to use more emojis than letters—seriously, Clarke was not expecting that—she manages to understand Fridays have been decreed date night.

Are they the kind of couple that has a weekly date night? Clarke wonders, and then shrugs. She's not going to say no to wining and dining.

He shows up that night with a six-pack of beer and takeout hot wings; she grins, deems it close enough, and tugs him inside.

"Is this okay?" he asks. "Because, you know. We could go out."

"Some other time," she says, and slips her hands into his back pockets as he kisses her.

Her fingers encounter a bulky object, and Bellamy stills. He doesn't protest when she pulls out the crookedly wrapped box, and though his cheeks are a dark red, he nods when she asks to open it.

"A…keychain?" she asks, letting the shiny little twist of metal dangle from her fingers.

"I—yeah. It's, uh, well, I pulled the piece off that old junker of yours."

Clarke inspects it closely. The short chain is hooked to a small hole, and the rest of the piece looks like it's been recently covered in grime. "It's a piece of my dad's car?"

Bellamy nods, and the keychain and Bellamy go a little fuzzy. Clarke blinks furiously, but that only makes it worse, so she just throws her arms around Bellamy and squeezes. He coughs dramatically after a few seconds. "You're suffocating me."

"Deal with it," she mumbles into his shoulder.

"Clarke—"

"Shut up." She waits until she's fairly sure she's not going to have a meltdown, and then she lets go and inspects the keychain more closely. "What is it?"

"Just a piece of the engine. I cleaned all the grease off."

Clarke frowns. "Doesn't the engine need all its pieces?"

Bellamy shakes his head. "Not that engine. It's, uh, pretty much shot to hell. Sorry."

"Oh. Well, it's really cool." Clarke hangs the keychain on the hook with her keys. "I'll move them all later. Right now I'm starved."

"Whatever you say, princess. Kitchen or couch?"

"Mm... couch. Netflix just got new seasons of, like, six shows."

Bellamy takes the beer and wings into the living room and sets them up on the coffee table. Clarke fires up Netflix and flips through her list until she settles on something she's only mildly interested in—a cop drama that's easy to watch and easy to ignore.

They get through one episode on hot wings, and then the hot wings run out and they get distracted, but Clarke could care less whodunit anyway because she's got her own mystery to solve: how the hell she ended up with a wonderful, gorgeous, comical man like Bellamy Blake.

* * *

Just because he's wonderful, gorgeous, and comical doesn't mean he's perfect, by any means. She's not either, but they do their best. Which is apparently pretty good—surprisingly, given how they started out when they met, it takes them months to have a serious fight, the kind that's more than snarky bickering followed by wall-sex.

It's something small that starts it. When Clarke tells Bellamy that she likes Octavia's boyfriend, and he should lay off Lincoln already, he snaps at her to mind your own goddamn business, princess. And then there's yelling and slamming doors and cold silence to mask the hurt.

They don't talk for two days.

Then he shows up with a bouquet of purple hyacinths and white tulips, looking somewhat miserable.

"I'm an asshole," he says when she opens her door. "And I'm sorry."

She considers him until he fidgets, brows drawn together.

"Clarke?"

"I'm sorry, too. But I'm not always just going to agree with you because you're my boyfriend," she says. "I think it's weird when people stop having their own opinions and personalities just because they're in love or whatever."

He pauses. "Was that you saying you're in love with me?"

She thinks, then nods. "Yeah. Or whatever."

"Oh." He's quiet for a minute. "I—"

She takes the bouquet, waves him inside. "This isn't a timed test. You don't have to say anything."

Clarke squeaks and drops the flowers when he pulls her into a tight hug. "Last time I checked, I don't take orders from you," he says, a smile in his voice as he repeats her words from so long ago.

"Is that your way of saying you're in love with me?" she asks breathlessly.

He grins. "Or whatever."

* * *

Turns out? Wall-sex when they're in love is even better than when they're angry.


End file.
